


Just Friends

by WinterRose527



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Modern AU, literally no canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:18:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 37,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: Myrcella Baratheon and Robb Stark are just friends. Okay, well they aren't just friends, they are best friends. And roommates. What could go wrong?





	1. Lazy Sunday

He heard the familiar giggle, but it was muffled, and it wasn’t for him. It was followed by a shriek and then silence. He turned the sound up on the news.

 

Death. War. Disease. Famine. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse interrupted in five minute intervals by commercials offering fabric softener.

 

He should be getting dressed. He was meant to be meeting Jon at the gym in an hour but he felt sluggish, having worked over 80 hours that week and knew that if he lounged on the couch long enough, his roommate’s guest would leave and they could have one of their lazy Sundays.

 

As if on cue, the door of their bedroom opened and out walked a guy in his boxer shorts.

 

“Stark,” he said with a self-satisfied grin.

 

“Martell,” he said, as he padded to the bathroom.

 

Robb got off the couch and went over to turn on a fresh pot of coffee. Moments later he was joined in the kitchen by his roommate Ella, the giggler.

 

“Morning handsome,” she said with a smile as she pointed to a mug just out of reach.

 

He went over to grab it for her and filled it up with coffee before handing it back. She went into the fridge and grabbed out two cartons of milk, one whole, one almond, and handed the first to him.

 

She was dressed too skimpily for the snow falling outside, in light pink satin pajama shorts and shirt. Her golden blonde hair was tousled, making her look much younger than her twenty four years and she hummed lightly as she sipped her coffee.

 

“I thought you were going to wait for me,” a cocky voice came from behind her.

 

“Ella Baratheon waits for _no one_ ,” she said haughtily and Robb hid his smile by taking a sip from his mug.

 

“What time is it anyway?” Trystane asked them.

 

“10,” Robb said as Trystane pulled Ella’s back flush against him, kissing her cheek. She handed him her mug and he took a sip, wincing when he did. Robb knew his pain. Ella liked her coffee _sweet_. It was borderline undrinkable.

 

“Well I’ve gotta go, or my Uncle will quite literally put a spear through my heart. Sure I can’t convince you, babe?” he asked her over his shoulder.

 

“Nope, please send my regrets though,” she said, and it could have been believed to be genuine had she not rolled her eyes at Robb. “Stark and I are going to have ourselves a positively _oafish_ Sunday.”

 

“I uh…actually am meant to go to the gym with Jon…” he says.

 

“Well that sounds terrible,” she says, not at all worried he’d go through with it. She knew him too well for that. “You pick the movie, I’m going to shower. Where’s Grey Wind?” she asked looking around.

 

“THIS FUCKING DOG DID IT AGAIN!?” they hear from Ella’s bedroom. Trystane stormed out in only his khakis, holding up a torn button down shirt. Grey Wind padded out after him, a shred of fabric dangling from his jowls that confirmed his guilt.

 

“Oh Grey Wind,” Ella said strutting over to the mutt, “You’re a very very bad dog.”

 

Of course, she said it in a coo and pressed a kiss to his nose.

 

“I’ll buy you a new one,” Robb offered. It was only fair.

 

Trystane shook his head and wandered back into the bedroom, muttering, “Third fucking one this month.”

 

***

 

“Moooore,” Ella joked as the episode of Maze of Lords ended.

 

“We’ve watched three already,” Robb says.

 

“Mooore,” she repeats and he chuckles as he presses play on the next episode.

 

He picks up a pillow and places it in her lap, laying down with his head on it. Her hands found his russet curls and he made a sound very similar to the one Grey Wind made when she scratched behind his ears.

 

His phone bleeps and she picks it up for him, seeing _Marg_ on it and he reads the text, types something quickly and sets it down.

 

“Is she coming over?” Ella asked curiously.

 

He’d been dating Margery for a few weeks, since Sansa’s last visit for work when she’d introduced them on a night out.

 

“No,” he said, not offering any more information.

“Has anyone ever told you that you have a gift for language?,” she joked and he looked up at her and grinned.

 

“Well if you must know, she wanted me to thank you for her,” he says.

 

“For what?” she asked, examining his hair and wondering if it was time for her to cut it again.

 

“For watching this with me. She says it’s all tits and fighting and she’s happy that I have someone to watch it with.”

 

_Yeah and plotlines steeped in history and some of the best dialogue on television…_

“Well uh…she’s welcome, I guess? I mean…I’m sure she’s grateful I’m taking you off her hands for any activity, broody sod that you are…” she jokes.

 

“You love me, Ella… what would you do without me?”

 

“Watch Maze of Lords in peace?”

 

“A fate too cruel for one such as you.”

 

After another episode he went out in the snow to take Grey Wind for a walk, and when he came back and got on the couch she curled up against him. She felt sluggish and comfortable, and Robb was a notoriously good cuddler. Sundays were their day, and she loved spending them with her best friend in their home, while the world buzzed on without them.

 

She woke on Monday with Grey Wind in her bed and only the vague memory of being carried there.


	2. No regrets?

Robb walked into The Crow at 9 o’clock on Thursday night and gratefully took the whiskey Jon handed him.

 

“Is Selmy trying to kill you?” Jon asked, though from the fact that he was still wearing his suit jacket, Robb knew he had only been released by Mormont minutes earlier.

 

“No, just trying to win the toughest Senate race in a decade,” Robb mumbled as he drank the whiskey too quickly. He’d gotten to the office at 7 am that morning and had been in back to back meetings with donors for most of the afternoon.

 

Robb Stark was charming, so while the candidate he supported, Barristen Selmy relied on him for his advice on policy and debate structure, he also used that charm and the benefit of the Stark name to impress donors. Robb wouldn’t let just any man use him that way. But he and his family had known Selmy for years and believed in him and his platform.

 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Wolves of Winterfell,” a deep voice came from behind them and Robb turned to see Gendry approaching with Ella in tow, finishing up a phone call.

 

“No. I said _no_ Grandfather. Because. No. No you listen to me! I will not come. He is _vile_ …” she was saying and Robb knew he must be trying to convince her once again to travel to King’s Landing to go to the party celebrating her older brother Joffrey’s ascension to President of Lannister Corp. Her grandfather must have said something funny because she smiled then and said teasingly, “Well, you could always bail and come here and take me for dinner at Fontine instead…very well… yes, yes…” she looked at Robb warily, “No he’s not here yet… I’m not lying! I’m not… I’m-oh fine,” then she held out the phone and said to Robb, “He wants to talk to you.”

 

_Fucking hell._

“Hello Mr. Lannister,” he said, flipping off Jon as he pulled Ella to him and smothered her cheek in kisses.

 

“Are you keeping an eye on my granddaughter?” the gravely voice asked.

 

“Yes sir,” he says.

 

“Is she still with that Martell fool?” he asks as though he’d never heard of something so preposterous. Robb couldn’t entirely disagree.

 

“Yes sir.”

 

“That hound of yours is keeping an eye out too?” he asked and Robb had to smile.

 

“Couldn’t stop him if I wanted to…” he said, thinking of the way Grey Wind always found a way to destroy something of Trystane’s whenever he came over.

 

“Very well.” He said and hung up.

 

“What a charming, charming man,” Robb said as Ella greeted Jon, the latter peppering her cheeks in kisses.

 

“Well he has nothing but nice things to say about you, Robbert,” Ella said pointedly as she gratefully accepted the martini Gendry handed her.

 

“Your grandfather never has anything nice to say about anyone, except you,” Robb argued.

 

“Can we not talk about Tywin fucking Lannister? No offense, Doe,” Gendry said.

 

While Ella and Gendry had grown up knowing of one another, her grandfather had always made it perfectly clear what he thought of her half-brother’s existence (not that he knew Gendry at all). Ella on the other hand, had always made it perfectly clear that Gendry was her brother and that was that.

 

“Anyway,” she said with a roll of her eyes.

 

“Doe you’re up!” Gendry said as a pretty girl was nearing them.

 

“Oh my god, I love your shoes!” Ella said to her and the girl stopped and smiled, “I’ve been looking for ones like that…” she said looking down at a pair of shoes she would _never_ wear, then she looked up at the girl and moved back as if seeing something for the first time, “My goodness you’re beautiful, aren’t you?” she said and the girl laughed sheepishly. Ella pulled Jon up from his seat and said to the girl, “Have you met my friend Jon? Handsome right? If you’re into that whole _broody and mysterious thing_.”

 

The girl laughed and held her hand out, “I’m Val.”

 

“I had a feeling,” Jon said with a smile and Robb rolled his eyes.

 

They all had steam to blow off. Jon worked for a cybersecurity company as the second in command, Ella worked in the fast pace of the most successful auction house in the world, and Gendry ran a non-profit for inner city children. It was a Thursday night and they had all had a week of playing at being adults so the drinks flowed a little too freely.

 

Jon left with Val around 10, bowing down to the goddess wingwoman before he left, and Gendry left as well to go meet a mysterious woman he wouldn’t name.

 

“Amateurs,” Ella said as they left.

 

“One more round, sweetheart?” he asked her, already signaling to the bartender.

 

They sipped their drinks, catching up about the week. She’d gone to an exhibition opening with Trystane the night before, while he’d taken Margery to a concert. When their eyes got a bit droopy he paid the tab while Ella hailed a cab.

 

They were on the ride home when they both got calls.

 

“Hi Trystane,” she said sleepily.

 

“Hi Marg,” he said.

 

“I don’t know… I’m about to fall asleep…” she yawned.

 

“Oh, erm…well…” Robb said, his trousers feeling tight at what Margery had just suggested.

 

“Yeah, I’ll just see you tomorrow for dinner okay? Mmmhm sleep tight,” Ella said, hanging up the phone and leaning her head against his shoulder. Because it was Ella, she had no issue trying to rearrange his bones to make a better pillow, so he lifted his arm and let her curl into him.

 

“You know what Marg? I’m gonna call it a night… yeah I’ll see you Saturday,” he said, hanging up as well.

 

“We should have invited them,” Ella said once they were in the elevator.

 

“I know…” Robb agreed. He wasn’t sure why they hadn’t. Margery and Trystane were always fun on a night out.

 

“Does Margery like me?” Ella asked as they entered into the apartment, nearly being knocked over by Grey Wind.

 

“Why wouldn’t she? How could she not?” he asked as he righted her and grabbed Grey Wind’s leash so he could take him out.

 

“I don’t know… just something Sansa said,” Ella said, and she looked like her thoughts were a little far away.

 

“What did Sansa say?”

 

“That we don’t make enough room for other people in our lives…” but she turned and smiled at him, “But you’re my best friend… I’ve got dibs, right?”

 

“You’re my number one girl and always will be,” he promised, because it was true.

 

“And you’re my ride or die…” she said and stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. She wobbled a little bit and it landed at the corner of his mouth and she blushed, mumbling goodnight before disappearing into her room.

 

***

 

“Ella dear, the Tyrells are here and I’m stuck on this call, would you give them a tour of Gallery Six?” her boss asked her on Tuesday afternoon.

 

 _Fuck_ , Ella thought as she stood and switched off her ballet flats for a pair of stilettos, smoothing her dress. “Of course, Ellaria.”

 

She wove her way through the large building down to the front desk. She knew them immediately, Margery’s mother was an elder version of her and she’d met her father many times at events for Lannister Corp.

 

“Mr. and Mrs. Tyrell?” she said tentatively anyway, “My boss Ellaria sends her apologies, but she is stuck at the moment and wondered if you might like a tour of the galleries as you wait?”

 

“Myrcella Baratheon?” Margery’s rather oafish father asked.

 

“That’s right, sir, it’s a pleasure to see you again…” she said.

 

“And you… why have I heard your name so recently?” he asks her.

 

“Margery is seeing my roommate…” she said with a blush, hoping that none of her elder colleagues could here. She wouldn’t anyone to think she was using connections, though everyone did.

 

“Ah yes, the Stark boy. He’s a good boy, isn’t he?” Margery’s mother asked kindly.

 

“The best,” Ella assured her, “If you’ll follow me?”

 

The Tyrells followed her through the expansive galleries. She stopped at a Klimt she thought might appeal to them. It was a garden scene, nothing like the pictures of his women, and she noticed the way Mrs. Tyrell’s hand fluttered to her neck upon seeing it.

 

“It’s like stepping into a dream, is it not?” Ella asked.

 

“Yes…” she breathed, “What is the estimate?”

 

“8 to 12 million,” Ella said calmly. She had grown up around money and now had the ability to rattle off figures such as that without balking. It was a talent that had set her apart from the other girls of her generation at the firm.

 

“Conservative,” Mr. Tyrell said.

 

She turned to him and smiled, “You’re clever to realize,” _and foolish to point it out_ , “I do hope we’ll see you at the sale tomorrow night?”

 

“We wouldn’t miss it dear,” Mrs. Tyrell said, her eyes still on the painting. She winked at her boss Ellaria as she approached and exited as gracefully as she could, promising that they could in fact do dinner with Margery and Robb soon. That she’d put something in the calendar.

 

She was headed back to her desk when she got a text from Trystane: _Hey babe, just had a meeting near you, can you sneak out a bit early?_

She smiled and texted back saying she’d meet him at a bar around the corner. She’d been working late for the past couple of weeks in preparation for the auction, and now that it was almost here she’d done her part and was ready for a bit of a break.

 

She ran to grab her purse and then walked into the elegant oak lobby of the bar, where Trystane had a martini waiting for her.

 

“Hi babe,” he said, kissing her cheek.

 

“Hi yourself,” she said, “Sure your Uncle won’t have your head for being off the clock before six?”

 

Trystane shifted and said, “Ah, that’s actually why I wanted to meet you now… I’m going to have to bail on dinner tonight. I’ve got to go back to the office.”

 

“Oh,” Ella said, trying not to pout. She prided herself on being a not-needy girlfriend, and often had to cancel plans with him for her own work so she couldn’t really hold it against him. “Alright, well should we order something so you don’t have to go back on an empty stomach?” she asked him as he responded to someone on his cell phone.

 

“You know what, darling, I’ll just order something to the office,” he said, making a big show of putting away his cell phone and taking a sip of his drink. “Let’s talk about you, how do you think the sale will go tomorrow?”

 

Ella took a thoughtful sip of her martini and said, “I think it’s going to kill. The pieces, as you know are _incredible,_ but there is something going on in this city. I think there is the perfect combination of wealth and ego right about now…”

 

He smiled at her and held up his glass, “Spoken like the granddaughter of Tywin Lannister.”

 

She clinked her glass against his and took a sip, though she wasn’t completely sure that she liked the comparison.

 

***

 

“I’ve got to head out Barristen,” Robb said, poking his head in his boss’ office.

 

“I didn’t give you leave,” Barristen joked.

 

“I’ve got the Shipley’s auction,” Robb explained anyway. He had been going already, to bid on behalf of his mother and then Margery had invited him to go with her and her parents. He hadn’t met them yet (not as her boyfriend anyway) and figured that the business of the auction might lend itself to making the meeting a bit more casual.

 

“Ah yes, keep your ears open, alright?” Barristen said.

 

“Always,” Robb promised and left.

 

The building was packed by the time he arrived. He ducked his head to avoid the photographers and went to get his paddle. There was a 22 year old girl fighting off billionaires’ agents who refused to show proper identification and it made him smile to think of Ella’s stories from starting out at the firm. He thanked the girl and walked up the stairs to the main auction room and looked at all the familiar works. Ella had given a catalogue to his parents the last time they’d come to the apartment for brunch and had spent an hour leafing through it with his mother, answering her questions.

 

“Robb, darling!” an elegant voice called. It belonged to Margery Tyrell, the rising star in the fashion world, and his girlfriend of a month.

 

“Hi beautiful,” he said, kissing her cheek. She was wearing one of her designs, a powder blue frock and she looked gorgeous, but then, she always did.

 

She wrapped an arm around his waist and gestured to the older couple in front of them, “You remember my parents.”

 

“Mr and Mrs Tyrell, it’s a pleasure to see you,” he said, smiling at Margery’s mother who was as elegant as her daughter and a good deal more than her husband.

 

“And you, Robb… we had the pleasure of getting a tour from your roommate yesterday. She’s got quite an eye,” Mrs. Tyrell said.

 

“Oh yes, she mentioned what a pleasure it was to see you,” Robb lied. He hadn’t seen Ella at all yesterday.

 

Margery is about to ask something but the auctioneer takes to the rostrum and everyone finds their seats. A number of Shipley employees line the telephone banks on either side of the room, and Robb’s eyes flit to Ella who stands out in the sea of black wearing a light pink silk dress.

 

The auction goes at a fast pace. There is a hysteria in the room brought about by the rise in the economy and an end to the war in Essos. People are confident once again, and it is translating into a buying frenzy, just as Ella had predicted. More millions were traded in a single hour at this auction than most companies could hope to trade all year.

 

He narrowly wins the impressionist work his mother bade him bid, a pretty scene of two sisters with auburn hair in a rowboat, and rests easier knowing that he at least had achieved what he’d set out to do.

 

There is a Klimt, which creates the most vicious and lengthy bidding war, which Mr. Tyrell ‘wins’, paying a cool $33 million.

 

There is an artist Robb doesn’t recognize (which admittedly is not a rarity, he only knew what little he did by being dragged to the museum by Ella on rainy afternoons) and there is a war going between two phone bidders, one of whom Ella is speaking with.

 

She raises her hand in a bid and quickly her colleague follows. This continues on and on until her colleague has placed a bid, $50 million, and Ella goes silent, whispering into the phone.

 

“Miss Ella,” the auctioneer taunts, “I’m going once.”

 

She waves him off, signaling for him to wait, as she whispers quickly to her client on the phone.

 

“Darling, I can’t wait all day,” the auctioneer jibes.

 

With that she places the phone on her shoulder and says haughtily, “Some things are _worth_ waiting for,” much to the delight of the crowd who laugh at the auctioneer’s expense (though he himself throws back his head and laughs).

 

Finally Ella looks up and says, only the smallest of smiles on her faces, “$60 million.”

 

Her colleague speaks to the person on the phone but the auctioneer knows its over, “Going once? Going twice… no regrets? Sold, to the daring beauty in pink!”


	3. Not like that

“What do you think?” Ella asked, holding up a silver brocade skirt in the mirror. She was wearing only a bra and panties and half of her wardrobe was on her bed where her new friend Margery lay.

 

“ _Love_ , but not for tonight. Do you have leather leggings?” Margery asked as she hopped off the bed.

 

Ella had always had her own style, and was often written up on the international best dressed list, but when your roommate started dating _the_ current name in fashion, you would be a fool not to consult her.

 

Margery was wearing a dress that practically looked like chainmail, showing off her skin in a dizzying pattern that many men no doubt would get lost in. She had thought Robb was going to keel over when he saw her.

 

Ella follows her to her closet and just then her door swings open, “Can you guys hurry up its been an hou-“ he starts but goes slack jawed when he realizes what he’s walked into.

 

She blushes when his eyes roam over her exposed skin. Though he’d seen her in bathing suits plenty of times it was different being in her underwear. She hid behind the door of her closet, “Get out you ninny!”

 

He let out a chuckle, “El-“

 

“Get out!” she said again more sternly and he left with a shake of his head, still laughing.

 

When the door closed she started to giggle, because maybe she had _slightly_ overreacted and looked at Margery thinking she’d join in. The girl always loved a bit of scandal. But to her surprise Margery just looked at her and said “The silver skirt is fine. I’m going to go grab a drink.”

 

***

 

Somehow he’d messed up. All he’d done was walk into the room but both Margery and Ella were ignoring him.

 

He certainly didn’t have the _intention_ of walking in on Ella in her underwear, but he couldn’t really find it in him to be sorry about it. No man in his right mind could be sorry about that.

 

It usually wasn’t difficult being best friends with Ella. I mean, he _knew_ she was beautiful. He wasn’t an idiot, she was the most beautiful girl he’d ever known. But she was so much more than that to him that he could often forget about it. She was his best friend, she was his _home_. But then again, he didn’t usually see his best friend in her lacy underwear.

 

Before her, he’d never considered living with a girl. Jon had just moved out into his own apartment, and though Robb at only 24 could afford to live on his own, he quite missed the company. So when his father told him that his best friend’s daughter (the same girl who was his sister’s best friend in University and an all-around sweetheart) was moving to the city and was hoping he’d look out for her, he’d readily accepted.

 

They had fallen in together almost immediately and now he couldn’t imagine life without her. So perhaps that was why he was a bit more intent on getting _her_ to forgive him than his girlfriend.

 

“Come on, sweetheart, it was an accident,” he said as he pushed a martini towards her.

 

“So was the Hindenburg,” she said, though she smiled and took a sip anyway.

 

“I’d hardly put me seeing you in your underwear on the same plane as hundreds of people dying but… I see your point…” he joked.

 

“You know if this was a sitcom, I’d get to see you in _your_ underwear,” she said with an arch of her eyebrow and a mischievous smile.

 

“Well thank god this _isn’t_ a sitcom,” he said and threw his arm over her shoulder, kissing her forehead, happy he’d been forgiven. “And I will not be treated like a piece of meat.”

 

They walked back to the table to join Margery, Trystane, Jon and Gendry and Sam. She slid in next to Trystane, handing him his vodka soda, while he pulled Margery to him. Intent on getting her to forgive him as well. Though he wasn’t really sure what he had done to her.

 

He didn’t find out until the taxi ride to her apartment. She’d snapped at Gendry and Robb had excused them for the evening, determined to get to the bottom of what had his normally carefree girlfriend in knots.

 

“What is going on with you, Marg?” he asked her, taking her hand in his.

 

“Nothing… just… why are you with me?” she asked him.

 

“Is that a trick question?” he asked her, because really it was kind of ridiculous. “You’re fun and clever and gorgeous…why _wouldn’t_ I be with you?”

 

“Because you’ve never looked at me the way you looked at Ella when you walked into her bedroom tonight,” she said.

 

 _How did I look at her?_ Robb wondered. He’d been shocked and sure, his gaze had lingered a bit too long on her exposed skin, but he’d lingered on Margery’s form plenty of times.

 

“Ella and I are just friends, Marg… you have nothing to worry about,” he assured her.

 

Ella was his friend. His best friend, but his friend. It didn’t matter that she was beautiful, she was his girl, his _ride or die_ as she liked to say, but his friend, nothing more.

 

“Just friends’ don’t look at each other like that,” Margery said with a sigh.

 

***

 

“Come on Trystane, a little help?” she said as she tweaked the vase of flowers on the dining room table and hurried to check on the muffins in the oven.

 

“Why do you care so much, they aren’t even _your_ parents,” he mumbled from his spot on the couch where he was reading the Sunday paper.

 

Just then Robb emerged from his room and wordlessly brought the pitchers of juice and water to the dining room table, nearly yelling at her when she tried to carry the platter of fruit and taking it from her hands. She supposed it was only right that he helped, it was his family coming for brunch after all, but still.

 

They set about in the kitchen and she relished in the easy familiarity. He’d been distant with her recently, distant for them anyway, and it was nice to settle back into a routine on Sunday. Their day.

 

“Everything smells wonderful, Ella,” Margery says as she enters into the room wearing a grey dress, with tights and ankle boots. Ella herself was in jeans and an oversized cream cashmere sweater, her moose slippers still on her feet.

 

“Thank you, you look beautiful,” Ella said truthfully, and to reassure her. It was the first time she was meeting the Starks as Robb’s girlfriend and Ella knew she was nervous.

 

“Smokin,” Trystane said as he finally got off the couch and Ella and Robb both glared at him. “What? She does. Wouldn’t hurt for _you_ to dress up every now and then, babe.”

 

Ella wants to say something but Robb cuts in and says, “She dresses up all the time, mostly for events that _you_ drag her to. Besides, she doesn’t have to dress up for my family, they _love_ her.”

 

Too late he realizes his mistake and Margery juts her chin forward. Ella wants to say something to her but the doorbell rings and Robb goes to open it, shooting an apologetic look at Margery.

 

“That’s not how he meant it,” Ella said, taking Margery’s hand.

 

“Maybe not, but it’s true,” Margery said, then plastered a smile on her face as the Stark brood invaded.

 

Hands were around her waist immediately and she leaned back into the familiar embrace of Robb’s little sister Arya. She turned around and hugged the girl back, asking rapid fire questions about university and then looking into her eyes.

 

“Oh my god, Arya, come with me,” she said, dragging the girl into the bathroom. She went into the cabinet and pulled out visine, handing it to her. “I cannot believe you showed up high for brunch with your _parents_.”

 

Arya giggles and says, “Want some?”

 

“No!” Ella said immediately.  After half a moment she looked at her and said, “But stay after everyone leaves and then maybe…”

 

The girls exited the bathroom laughing and Catelyn came over to embrace her, complimenting her on her choice of flowers and Bran had gone into her room to borrow another book and Rickon was rolling on the floor with Grey Wind and Ned kissed her forehead and asked her if Robb was looking out for her.

 

She wanted to be sorry about what Robb said. Truly she did. But he was right, the Starks loved her, and she loved them. She couldn’t be sorry about that.

 

***

 

“And then _Loras_ , fool that he is, jumped in!” Margery finished with the familiar punchline and his family laughed politely, while Trystane nearly fell out of his chair laughing, and Ella smiled at her. She too had heard the story before.

 

“What an adventure!” his mother said conspiratorially, though to Robb’s ears it sounded a little false.

 

“Does anyone need more coffee?” Ella asked and stood up.

 

“I’ll help,” his mother said and stood with her, wrapping an arm around Ella’s waist as they went into the kitchen, heads bent in conversation.

 

His gaze followed them, wondering what mischief they were cooking and when they rounded the corner into the kitchen he looked away into the eyes of his father who smiled at him warily.

 

“So _Arya_ ,” Margery started, “Have you met any nice boys in school? You’re at Wintertown U isn’t that right?”

 

“Yes and no. I don’t go looking for nice boys,” Arya said and Robb fought the urge to smile. _My little sister the rebel._

“Ah still in the bad boy phase? Every girl has one…” Margery said knowingly.

 

“Ella didn’t, did you babe?” Trystane asks as she walks back in with a pot of coffee, his mother following behind with more muffins.

 

“No… I always figured I was worth treating nicely…” she said, “As are you little one,” she said to Arya.

 

Had anyone else said that they would have gotten a role of her eyes in response, but Arya only smiled at her, a slight blush to her cheeks.

 

Robb fought the urge to remark that Trystane didn’t always treat her nicely, this morning for instance. He had wanted to punch him first for checking out his girlfriend and then, for insinuating Ella looked anything less than perfect. She had more gowns than half the country combined, always appearing in one fashion spread or another, but she looked just as beautiful in her jeans and sweater. And he was pretty sure he’d go to war for those slippers of hers.

 

“Must be nice,” Margery said somewhat viciously and Ella’s gaze flicked to hers. “To always get what you deserve.”

 

He wonders what Ella had opened her mouth to say, but Rickon gets up out of his seat, crumbs falling to the floor as he does which causes Grey Wind to run to eat them. His little brother climbs into Ella’s lap, and to most it probably looked like he was just a baby, curling into the girl that he loved. But Robb knew. Robb, too, was a Stark boy, so that is why he knows that Rickon, his seven year old brother, is shielding Ella’s body with his own.

 

***

 

“You’ll call me later?” Trystane asks her as he stands at the doorway.

 

“Mmmhm, and if you get any texts demanding you bring me tacos, just ignore me,” Ella says with a giggle.

 

“You are such an idiot,” he says with an affectionate smile and pulls her to him. “My pretty little idiot.”

 

She stands up on her tiptoes to kiss him and he pulls her to him, kissing her deeply. He could be a bit of a prick, and was far too entitled for a boy of his age, but he knew how to kiss. He held her flush against his body and she gave into the familiar feel of his lips on hers.

 

“Bye babe,” he said with a kiss to her nose and she closed the door.

 

“OH – EM – GEE I thought he’d _never_ leave,” Arya says, quoting one of their favorite lines from It’s Complicated as she rolled a joint.

 

“Robb’s going to kill me, if he ever comes back,” Ella said, plopping on the couch next to her and patting the spot on her other side so that Grey Wind comes up and rests his head on her leg.

 

“He would never,” Arya says with a shake of her head, lighting the joint and taking a first puff. She passed it to Ella and said, “My brother would sooner kill me for corrupting you than the other way around.”

 

Ella giggled and turned on the television, going to their favorite show and pressing play on season six.

 

Robb comes back and looks like he’s just seen a ghost, “What the fuck are you guys doing?”

 

Ella sits up straighter, about to defend herself but Arya blows smoke out and says, “Getting high and watching Maze of Lords.”

 

“Oh thank god,” Robb said and plopped on the couch on Arya’s other side, pulling his baby sister to him and taking the joint she offered.

 

Ella stretched out, her legs and feet across Arya and Robb’s laps, her head on Grey Wind’s body.

 

“Marg alright?” Ella asked him lazily after a while.

 

“She’s fine,” Robb said with a sigh. She wanted to ask him more, but she was too high and her tongue felt heavy.

 

“That girl is more drama in her little finger than you are in your whole body,” Arya said to her big brother.

 

“You don’t get it she’s-“

 

“Beautiful, yeah I know. But there’s a lot of beautiful in this world,” Arya said, and Ella was so focused on the television that she didn’t see that their gazes had fallen to her.'

 

***

 

“They adored you,” Robb exaggerated as he and Margery walked through the restaurant at the end of their date on Thursday night.

 

She had finally gotten over whatever her problem was and they’d had a great week, attending a professional basketball game on Tuesday with her brothers and having just had a wonderful dinner. He had been reminded why exactly he was dating her. Because she was clever and beautiful and fun.

 

He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. She was wearing black trousers and a complicated white top that left her shoulders bare and made him want to nibble on them and he really couldn’t wait to get her back to her apartment.

 

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, clearly not quite believing him but leaning up and kissing his cheek anyway.

 

He is about to hail a cab when he sees a guy grab a girl in a slutty dress to him, kissing her voraciously.

 

“Some people need to learn to get a room,” Margery said.

 

Robb was about to agree with her when the couple pulled away from each other and he saw that the guy was Trystane. But the girl, in her slutty dress and fake tan, was definitely not Ella.


	4. It's my party, I can cry if I want to

 

“It’s not too late to cancel, if you aren’t in a party mood…” Ella offers after Robb’s fifth sigh of the hour.

 

He looked up from where he was dumping ice in a cooler and rolled his eyes, “It’s your birthday, Ella. We are not going to not celebrate you being born. I’m just a little tired is all…” he says with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

 

She decides to make a pot of coffee because quite frankly, she was a bit tired herself and she didn’t want either of them drooping when they had to play hosts.

 

It was Saturday afternoon and they had transformed their apartment, pushing tables to the side and hiding all the breakables. Their friends may be the future leaders of tomorrow but they knew how to _party._ It had been Robb’s idea last week when they’d been hanging out with Arya, but he’d been weird all day and she had started to wonder if he regretted suggesting it.  

Once she’s doctored her coffee to her admittedly insane proportions she says, “I’m going to go get ready, standard pre-festivities shots at 7?”.

 

“You know it,” he said with a smile that actually did reach his eyes and she left, reassured.

 

She showered and blow dried her hair, curling it loosely. She threw on a sparkly silver mini dress because it was _her_ birthday after all, with a pair of black ankle boots. She didn’t bother wearing make-up because the way she figured, the more years that passed the more she’d need it. Plus she knew she’d be coerced into dancing and didn’t want to worry about her liquid eyeliner.  

 

She came out of her room just before 7 and went over to their speaker system, fiddling with Robb’s phone that he plugged in.

 

“Oooh turn this up,” he said when she put on their favorite Shock Machine song, coming into the kitchen and buttoning his shirt.

 

Her eyes rested briefly on his chest but she looked up and smiled teasingly, “Well don’t _you_ look handsome.” It was true. He was just in jeans and a light blue button down but he was insanely gorgeous and the clothes looked like they had been made for him.

 

“I’m surprised you even noticed, I thought you’d be blinded by _your_ beauty. Christ, Ella, you’re not even wearing make-up are you?” he asked with a smile.

 

“Flatterer,” she said with a shake of her head, not quite meeting his gaze.

 

“Oh my god, Ella Baratheon, are you blushing?” he asked her.

 

“No!” she protested. “It’s just the whiskey.”

 

“We haven’t drank anything yet,” he pointed out.

 

“Just shut up and pour, Stark,” she said stubbornly and making him smile. He seemed to be out of whatever funk he’d been in earlier and she was grateful for it. There was no one she liked spending the calm before the storm with, or the storm for that matter, than him.

 

He poured them each a shot and held up his saying, “To my _beautiful_ best friend. I love you more than life itself, sweetheart. So happy you were born.”

 

She clinked her glass against his and downed hers. She wanted to say something back. To tell him that she felt the same, even though he knew, but she didn’t have a chance. Their front door opened and Jon and Gendry walked in with Arya in tow. Suddenly Gendry was picking her up and twirling her and Jon was nearly tackling her with hugs and she didn’t have time to say any of it.

 

Trystane came in next and he looked devastatingly handsome in his white button down and jeans.

 

“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” he said taking her face in his hands and kissing her. When they pulled apart he handed her a small box.

 

“Trystane, you didn’t have to-“ she starts but he cuts her off.

 

“I wanted to, babe. Open it!”

 

She opens it up to find a beautiful pair of diamond earrings. They were too much. They’d only been dating for a few months. She feels Robb, Jon, Gendry and Arya all watching them.

 

“Oh!” she exclaims.

 

“You don’t like them?” he asks her.

 

“Of course I do, they’re beautiful! Thank you, but you shouldn’t have…” she says. She knew he could afford it, but still. It was too much.

 

“Wasn’t it you who said you should be treated nicely?” he teased her.

 

She leaned up and kissed him and then retreated to her bedroom to put them in a safe place, so she didn’t see the way Robb glared at Trystane or the way that glare was the first thing Margery saw when she walked through the door.

 

***

 

Robb was having a hard time staying in control of himself. Ever since he’d seen Trystane Martell kissing a girl that wasn’t Ella all he wanted to do was smash his fist against his face until his bones cracked.

 

Ella was good and sweet and perfect and Robb felt like a coward for not telling her immediately. But he hadn’t wanted to ruin her birthday. He’d planned on confronting Trystane tomorrow, telling him that if he didn’t tell her that he would. He was prepared to give him the one mercy of telling her himself, hoping that was his plan anyway.

 

But then he’d gotten her those fucking earrings. And Robb knew. This wasn’t the first time. This was who he was. And he had no intention of stopping, no intention of confessing. He would show up at his perfect girlfriend’s birthday party and shower her with affection, and the next night she worked late or went out with her friends, he would find a girl who couldn’t hold a candle to her. Just because he could.

 

He’d lost track of everyone, ignoring it all as he played beer pong with Jon (despite the fact that they were all too old, they all still loved it) and danced with Margery. He wouldn’t ruin Ella’s birthday. Even if that meant ignoring her all night long.

 

At some point though, he’d lost track of Margery too. He never really realized how big his and Ella’s apartment was until it was filled with people. He went to look for her and that is when he saw her, standing in front of the birthday girl, whispering something to her.

 

Ella’s face was like stone, her gaze on Trystane, but then something snapped and her gaze somehow found him. She’d never looked at him like that.

 

She turns and walks away and he crosses to reach her but Margery stops him before he can.

 

“Don’t Robb –“ she starts.

 

“How could you _do_ that?” he turns on her and asks.

 

“What? She deserves to know… after all, she likes to be treated _nicely_ …” Margery said innocently.

 

“Are you really that spiteful? What has she ever done to you? She’s good and kind and you _crushed_ her for no reason!” he says, fighting the urge to yell.

 

He had always been a tad overprotective of the people he loved, and he loved Ella more than most. It wasn’t because he’d told his father or her grandfather that he’d watch out for her. It didn’t have anything to do with her being both of his sisters’ closest friend. She was _his_. She was his best friend, his number one, his _ride or die_. He hadn’t just been talking when he said he loved her more than life itself.

 

“I am so fucking sick of hearing how _good_ she is. Cry me a fucking river, everyone knew Trystane was fucking around except you two apparently…” Margery says, and in that moment, one of prettiest girls he’d ever seen was truly ugly.

 

“Just get out. I can’t even look at you,” he said and walked away.

 

***

 

She couldn’t think straight. The look on Margery Tyrell’s face would haunt her for the rest of her life. She had enjoyed telling her, she had positively reveled in it.

 

Ella had never been hated to her knowledge, but she realized in that moment that Margery Tyrell hated her. For what, she couldn’t really say, but it didn’t matter anyway.

 

She couldn’t look at her, or Robb, or anyone, so she went into her room. She breathed in and out deeply, trying to get a hold of herself. She was a lady, she would not make a scene.

 

She was doubled over trying to breath when Arya and Jon came in. They were looking at her like she was a little crazy, but they didn’t say anything, they just sat on the edge of her bed and waited.

 

Jon, in his all black outfit, looked so out of place on her cream colored duvet that she actually straightened up and smiled.

 

“What’s going on, Doe?” he asked her quietly.

 

“It’s nothing…” she lied. Knowing what would happen when she told them.

 

“Mmhm, which is why notorious party girl Ella Baratheon is in her room alone on her birthday…” Arya said.

 

“I’m hardly _notorious_ ,” she said rolling her eyes.

 

“Tell that to page 6…” Jon said.

 

“Right, okay well… Trystane is cheating on me…a lot. Like a real lot.” she said quietly.

 

She ran to the door to stop them from running out of it.

 

“Move aside, Ella,” Jon said, his face contorted in anger.

 

“No no no no no,” Arya argued, “ _You_ got to beat up Ryan when he cheated on Sansa. It’s my turn.”

 

“No one is beating up anyone,” Ella said, her arms extended, holding onto either side of the door frame.

 

“You do realize that I could pick you up with one hand right?” Jon asked her smugly.

 

“Yes well, you do realize it’s _my_ birthday right?” she asked him stubbornly.

 

“Fine, fine, fine,” Arya said in annoyance. “What is our plan?”

 

“Grab me the box on my vanity,” she said and Jon went to retrieve it. “Alright, now, just…stay cool alright?”

 

“We’re _always_ cool,” Jon said.

 

“You have literally _negative_ amounts of chill…” Arya said and to Ella’s surprise she smiled. These two could pull her out of anything.

 

She wove her way through the party, Arya and Jon flanking her and she found Trystane talking to a girl she’d gone to university with.

 

“Hi babe, you good?” he asked her, eyeing Arya and Jon warily, but still with the cocky smile on his face.

 

“I’m great thanks, but I’ll be better shortly knowing that I will never see you again,” she said brightly, dropping the earring box in his hand, “Save those for the next girl, I’m sure she’ll like them even more than I did.”

 

“Next – babe, what are you talking about?” he asked, the smile faltering.

 

“I’m _talking_ about the fact that apparently any night you weren’t with me, you were sleeping with half the girls in this city. But quite frankly, it doesn’t matter because you can take your earrings and your overwhelming ego and you can get the hell out of my apartment.”

 

“El,” he said, going to grab her.

 

It was Jon who put a hand on his chest. “You’re going to not want to touch her.”

 

“Dude –“ Trystane said, meeting only Jon’s stony glare. He then turned to Ella, “Babe, come on… who have you been talking to?” but Ella’s glare was just as stony. “Let me just-“

 

“Maybe you didn’t hear her,” a familiar voice cuts in behind them. Robb. “Get the _fuck_ out of here and don’t ever show your face again.”

 

“Well that’s just fucking perfect, isn’t it?” Trystane said with a bitter laugh. “I was fucking doomed from the start wasn’t I?”

 

 She isn’t quite sure what he’s talking about, but she isn’t going to give him the satisfaction of answering. So all she says is, “I guess we’ll never know,” and walks away.

 

***

 

He’d lost track of Ella after she walked away from Trystane. She’d looked like a princess flanked by armed guards, standing regally with Arya and Jon on either side, ready to pounce. She hadn’t even sounded upset, just wary, exhausted of it all.

 

He’d tried to play host as well as he could, but the party was ruined for him from the beginning, and it was positively tortuous after what’d happened with Margery and Ella. All he wanted was for Ella to put on her pajamas and those moose slippers, so they could curl up on the couch together with Grey Wind, and he could make her feel better. He knew that he could, if only he could get her alone.

 

He hadn’t seen Grey Wind either, which made him feel a little bit better. There was no way he’d been anywhere other than her side.

 

Finally he says goodnight to the last of the guests, calling a cab for two girlfriends of Sansa and Ella’s from college and depositing them in it with strict instructions to the driver _not_ to take them downtown.

 

When he comes upstairs he goes into the kitchen to grab a glass of water and finds Ella at the sink, rinsing some cups.

 

“El, sweetheart, don’t do that. I’ll do it in the morning,” he says. She doesn’t say anything, but that is when he sees that her shoulders are shaking. His heart breaks knowing she is upset and he goes to gather her in his arms. “El –“

 

“Don’t touch me!” she says, pushing away from him.

 

He jumps back, surprised by her vehemence. She never yelled, and she had never used that tone with him. Like she was _afraid_ of him.

 

“El-“ he starts.

 

“How could you?” she asks turning to him. Her face is stained with tears and all he wants is to make it better, but he doesn’t know how. “How could you let me find out like that?”

 

“I’m sorry!” he says quickly. “I… I had no idea Margery was going to –“

 

“You should have seen her Robb, it was like she enjoyed it! And you just – you just let me! You were, oh god you were going to let me _sleep_ with him! How could you? How long have you known?” she asked.

 

“Thursday. Margery and. I-“ he says and suddenly she stops crying and looks at him appraisingly.

 

“Did you sleep with her that night?” she asks him and he stops short.

 

“What? Why could that matter?” he asks her, stalling. Because he had.

 

“I want to know. Did you sleep with her knowing what you knew?” she asks and she steps forward and shoves against him. “God Robb was getting laid really more important? I’m supposed to- you’re supposed to –“ she says and starts crying again and pushing against him. It doesn’t hurt, physically, but she is beating against his chest and sobbing and he wants to fall to his knees and beg her to forgive him.

 

“What? Ella what am I supposed to do?” he asks, grabbing her hands and holding them to his chest, “Tell me – tell me what I can do to make this better.”

 

“You’re supposed to protect me!” she says shoving away from him, “You’re supposed to choose me! Choose me over one of your stupid girlfriends or getting laid you’re supposed to –“ she says and he crosses to her, pulling her to him because now she was being unfair. He _always_ chose her. He would always choose her. And she knew it.

 

“What? Ella. Say it,” he says. He knows what she wants to say. He can feel it in his bones.

 

 “You’re supposed to-“ she starts but never finishes.

 

He wasn’t sure whose lips reached for the other’s first but it didn’t matter, because soon they were kissing and it was like everything before that moment ceased to exist.

 

It shouldn’t feel like this to kiss your best friend. It should feel wrong, foreign. But she had her fingers bunched in his shirt now and she was standing on her tip toes and his fingers were in her hair and it felt more right than anything ever had.

 

He nipped her bottom lip and she let out a little cry and he couldn’t take it. He picked her up by her butt and she wrapped her legs around his waist, her fingers now in his hair as she kissed his neck.

 

He took her into his bedroom and tore her dress off of her before plopping her on his bed, yanking her boots off. He kissed her long legs and she whimpered. His best friend Ella didn’t do that. He liked it anyway. He kissed up her body, and then she yanked him upwards, greedy, pulling his lips up to hers. He held her so harshly he thought she might bruise but her fingers started unbuttoning his shirt until he lost patience and tore if off of himself. He unbuttoned his jeans and kicked them off and then all of a sudden she was on top of him.

 

She sat astride him and her fingers curled in his chest hair. He was a fool, an idiot. How could he ever have thought her beauty wouldn’t be a problem? She was perfection. Dizzying, all-encompassing, merciless perfection.

 

She leaned down and kissed his chest and her silky hair was in his face and all he could breathe was her. He cupped her butt, squeezing it and her teeth found his jaw and he growled at her. He would never growl at his best friend.

 

She unhooked her bra and he rolled them over, he took one of her perfect breasts in his palm, and his mouth circled around her nipple. And then she was pulling down her own panties and he was pushing off his boxers and suddenly he was on top of her.

 

He pushed inside of her, and she was so wet and so tight and she felt _so_ good. He started to move inside of her, slowly, wanting her to feel every inch of him.

 

Her knees were up around his sides and her fingers were tracing his back and when he leaned down to kiss her neck she sighed out, “ _Robb_.”

 

His head snapped up and he let his hand cup the side of her face, his forehead falling against hers.

 

“Ella,” he whispered. And then, to his utter surprise, she smiled at him. And it was her, it was his best friend, and it was more perfect because of it.

 

***

 

She woke up in bed with her best friend.

 

It wasn’t the first time it had happened, but it certainly was the first time it had happened naked. Her mind flashed with images of the night before. She had been so angry with him and then all of a sudden she was kissing him and it was like this entirely new reality was presented to her.

 

She’d had enough sex to know that last night was not normal. They had fit like puzzle pieces of one another and she had never had a stronger orgasm then when he’d rolled them over and had her sit astride him.

 

She turned to look at him. He was so beautiful, with his square jaw and high cheek bones, his long lashes resting against them.

 

She had always known he was handsome. When she’d first met him in college she could hardly put two words together, but then she’d moved in and he was more than just her best friend’s handsome older brother. He became her best friend. The guy who didn’t flinch when he came home and she was wearing a skin care mask. The one who prepped her for big meetings. The one who she’d watch Maze of Lords with and cook dinner with and do nothing with.

 

She is contemplating all of this when his blue eyes open.

 

“Hi handsome,” she says and then blushes. It’s what she would say to him on any other day, but this was not any other day.

 

“Morning sweetheart,” he said, stretching, as though it was perfectly normal for them to wake up like this.

 

“I um…I can go…I should go back to my room…” she said.

 

“No!” he said grabbing her hand. She laid back against the pillows and he hovered over her, “It’s just… the minute you leave this bed… we have to deal with it all.”

 

“And-“ she starts but he puts a finger to her lips.

 

“But if you don’t finish that sentence, I will make you come so many times you can’t speak at all…” he says to her with a roguish grin.

 

She should say no. Say they have to talk about it. That it was a mistake, that they’ll ruin their friendship. Really she should do anything except what she did. Which was to take his finger in her mouth and nibble on it.

 

He grinned at her and pressed his finger against her tongue before dragging it out of her mouth and pressing it to her nub. He let his fingers dance over her, teasing her, playing with her until he pushed two inside of her. He let his thumb press against her nub as he moved his fingers in and out of her, his eyes on her face the whole time.

 

She felt her breath hitch, “That’s it sweetheart,” he murmured, and her stomach constrict, “That’s my girl, I can feel you tightening around me…you are so close,” he said as he started matching his rhythm moving in and out of her with his thumb pressing against her, her hips bucked up without her permission, “You should see yourself, Ella. This is how you should wake up every day,” she lets out a moan, “Oh you like it when I talk do you? Should I tell you how I can’t wait to be inside you again, should I tell you how your cunt was the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt?” he asks, increasing his pressure and she can feel her thighs shaking and her eyes fluttering shut, “Come for me sweetheart,” he commands and she lets out a cry as she feels the sensation overwhelm her.

 

She’s hardly recovered but she pulls him to her and kisses him because if they were going to do this then she was going to savor every moment of it, every moment of him. He had this way of kissing her that made her blind and she sought the darkness, wrapping her legs around his waist.

 

He shoved inside of her and they both let out a cry.

 

“ _Robb_ ” she cried as he started to move inside of her slowly, “ _Harder.”_

He didn’t say anything he just started pumping his hips faster, sitting up on his knees and grabbing her thighs.

 

“Is this what you want, Ella?” he asked her, his breath coming out in spurts.

 

“Yes,” she said, her head thrown back against the pillows, “Just like that. You feel so good.”

 

“Fuck, Ella,” he says and moves one arm around her waist holding her up, the other hand moving further down her thigh so that his thumb could tease her nub.

 

“ _Robb_ ,” she cried again, whimpering, “ _So perfect_.”

 

“Ella… come on sweetheart… you’re so close, I can feel you, so close… you’re almost there,” he murmured to her and she would have wondered at why she’d never realized how sexy his voice was if she didn’t feel her orgasm take hold. He came with a shudder following her and collapsed onto the bed.

 

She rolled over so she was on top of him, her chest pressed firmly against his and his hand came up to trail his fingers up and down her spine. She kissed his chest and his neck and nibbled his ear.

 

“ _I want more,”_ she whispered.

 

“Are you trying to kill me?” he whimpered.

 

“I can still talk, handsome,” she teased.

 

“Then I must find some other use for these lips of yours,” he said and pulled her up so that he could kiss her.

 

It was Sunday. Their day. They weren’t going anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to beg, but I'd love to know what you all think!


	5. The Redcoats are Coming

He hadn’t seen Ella since Sunday when she’d finally insisted that she _had_ to leave his bed. That was three days ago and Robb felt like he was going to go insane.

 

For one thing, he missed her. They rarely went this long without seeing each other. He missed his best friend.

 

For another thing, he missed her. They had spent an entire day pleasuring one another until they were sweaty and spent and incredulous. And then, nothing.

 

He knew she was alive. The bathroom smelled like her shampoo in the mornings and he’d come home last night to find her coat and bag in the front hall closet. He just hadn’t seen her.

 

He was contemplating going out, because really, what was more pathetic than him and his dog sitting on the couch _waiting_ for her when he got a text from her: _Can you meet me downstairs in five?_

_Sure, you need anything?_

_Just your manliness._

He smirked at that, feeling quite satisfied with himself which was positively stupid. He waited two minutes and then went downstairs and waited for her.

 

“Everything alright, Mr. Stark?” Clark the night watchman asked.

 

“Just waiting for Ella,” he explained. He didn’t bother telling him to call him Robb. He’d lived here four years and knew by now that he never would.

 

A large taxi pulled up and Robb saw Ella’s familiar golden hair and went outside to meet her.

 

“Good luck, Ella,” her driver said.

 

“Thank you, David!” she said brightly and got out of the taxi.

 

Robb didn’t even blink at the scene. Ella was forever making friends with taxi drivers and baristas and random people she met on the subway. They all teased her for it, but she’d just accused Jon of having resting bitch face and had tried to teach him how to be nice to strangers one afternoon. It had not gone well.

 

She smiles at him shyly but then nearly tumbles into his arms due to all of the bags she’s holding.

 

“Ella! What is going on?” he asked as she gave him the bundles and opened the trunk to grab out more.

 

She turned to him somberly and said, “It’s the Lannisters, they’re coming.”

 

_Tywin Lannister is going to murder me._

***

 

She couldn’t believe this was happening. Her family _hated_ the North. They called it a wasteland and hadn’t visited her once since she’d been there. But that afternoon she’d gotten a call from her mother to inform her that they were coming. All of them. Her mother and her brothers and her grandfather and her uncles. She hadn’t been given any explanation other than _We miss you, darling._ Of course, the fact that her father wasn’t also coming belied that statement.

 

She’d filled Robb in as best she could as she rabidly cleaned their apartment, though as he pointed out, it was spotless. Martha, their cleaning lady, had just come the day before. They had dinners planned out each night, apparently, but her mother said that they’d be coming for a little cocktail before dinner on Friday. Which meant that she’d needed to go to the liquor store to get the wine that her mother liked, the different wine that her Uncle Tyrion liked, and restock on her favorite gin that her grandfather and Uncle Jaime drank. She’d then had to go to the gourmet grocery store down the street to pick up cheeses and crackers and supplies to make a few hors d’oeuvres because if she didn’t then her mother would make some comment about how _modern_ it was not to serve a little something with their drinks. Not that she’d eat any of it anyway.

 

She had a plan to go to the flower market after work on Friday. She already figured that she’d have to take a half day and was wondering how to hide the fact that Grey Wind existed, though, when he’d climbed into bed with her she hugged him tight and apologized for ever thinking it. He seemed to forgive her once she scratched behind his ears.

 

A knock on her bedroom door startled her out of her debate between mini quiches and a mezzo board, “Come in,” she said, sitting up and cursing herself for wearing her thick flannel pajamas. Which was silly, because this was Robb.

 

She hadn’t seen him since, well, that day and she really didn’t know what to say. She missed him. She missed her best friend. But there he was, standing there, and all she could think about was kissing him.

 

“Did you throw out my whole milk?” he asked her curiously.

 

She tries to think of whether she should lie or not, “Um… well it’s just… if my mother _sees_ it, she’ll spend the rest of the weekend trying to figure out if I’ve gained weight in my face or on my ass so…”

 

He chuckled at her, “Your mom is actually insane. You could gain weight everywhere and _still_ not have enough fat on your bones.”

 

“Yeah well, insanity is a bit of a Lannister tradition…” she said with a smile.

 

They fell silent and looked at one another awkwardly. “El-“ he said, just as she said “Robb”. They laughed uncomfortably and finally she said, “You go first.”

 

“Well uh…I just… I don’t know I mean… should we talk about it?” he asked her. It was weird that he was hovering in her doorway, even Grey Wind looked at him curiously. Usually he would just plop in beside them, muttering about her being a dog thief.

 

“Or we could…not talk about it?” she suggested. He looked at her surprised and she continued, not able to look at him from the blush rising on her cheeks, “It’s just… we’re both just out of relationships and… well maybe it’s _stupid_ because of what…you know we are to each other but… it was fun…”

 

“Fun?” he asked and she could hear the smile in his voice which gave her the courage to look up at him.

 

“Wasn’t it?” she asks him with a smile of her own.

 

He crosses to her then and sits on the edge of her bed, “Uh… yeah… it was um… the most fun I’ve ever had.”

 

“The most?” she asked curiously, sitting up on her knees and placing her hands on his shoulders.

 

“Wasn’t it?” he asked, his blue eyes searching hers.

 

She knew it was a mistake before she did it. The other night could be easily explained away, the other day less so. But there was nothing that could make what they were doing now anything other than foolish.

 

“What do you say, Robb Stark,” she asked, her arms circling his neck and breathing in his smell of pine and spearmint, his perfect kissable lips just inches from hers, “You want to be stupid with me for a little bit?”

 

***

 

She was a vision. In her flannel pajamas and that irresistible smile on her pink lips asking him to be stupid with her. As if he had a choice.

 

He leaned in and kissed her because it was the only thing to do. He wanted her so badly he couldn’t see straight and she wanted him too.

 

She let out a little sigh and opened her lips to his and he pulled her across his lap so that he was cradling her and she was wearing her moose slippers and it should have made him second guess everything because this was _Ella_ his _sweetheart_ but she was kicking them off and her fingers were tracing his cheek lightly and he couldn’t think at all.

 

He started unbuttoning her pajama shirt, his fingers teasing the silky skin that appeared until she had goosebumps and she was shivering and then giggling. She let it fall off of her and then she was pulling his own shirt off of him, kissing his neck and shoulders and collarbone and pushing him back onto the bed. He was about make her straddle him when his head hit something furry and it groaned.

 

“Grey Wind!” he said and Ella covered her mouth in horror. “Come on buddy, get out,” he said and his dog looked at him stubbornly. Ella giggled and got off of him, giving him ample time to admire her topless form and she coaxed Grey Wind out of bed, muttering apologies and closing the door after him. She giggled and turned around and all he could do was stare.

 

“What?” she asked, going to cover herself.

 

“Don’t! Please… I just… can I look at you? Just for a second… I don’t want to embarrass you but… by god Ella…” he said because she was so gorgeous he couldn’t quite believe it.

 

Her eyes met his and she dropped her arms and he let his eyes trail over her face, with her high cheekbones and wide green eyes, down the elegant column of her neck, to her perfect small breasts and her slender waist. He hovered over her pajama bottoms and wordlessly she pulled them down, stepping out of them.

 

“Get over here,” he grumbled and she walked over teasingly, swaying her hips before climbing on top of him and straddling him, her arms wrapping around his neck and her bare chest pressing against his.

 

She kissed him, pressing herself against him and he could feel how wet she was through his pajama pants and it made him go blind. Her wanting him was the sexiest possible thing he could imagine and he pulled them down, releasing his hard cock.

 

“I did this to you?” she asks him, rubbing herself against him.

 

“You,” he says, gripping her hips too harshly, and she let out a soft moan, “Do you like knowing you get me hard?”

 

“Robb,” she whispered against his lips, positioning him at her entrance.

 

“Tell me, sweetheart,” he says, teasing her, stroking against her.

 

“ _Yes I like it_ ,” she says and he pulls her down onto him. “God Robb you made me so wet without even touching me…”

 

“I _know_ ,” he groans, “I can _feel you and it’s driving me fucking crazy,”_ he says as she starts to rock back and forth on him.

 

She gets on her knees straddling him and starts to move back and forth, quicker, rocking her hips. He bucks up to meet her and he can’t focus on how right it feels, can’t focus on what that means, all he can think about is getting her off.

 

“ _Robb,”_ she cries, and it isn’t fair. His name never sounded like that. He yanks her hair back and kisses her neck, his hand tweaking one of her rosebud nipples. “ _Yes, yes fuck me.”_

“Fucking hell, Ella,” he groans and nips her ear, both of his hands going down now to squeeze her ass, pushing her back and forth on him. “ _Anytime, anywhere_.”

 

“ _Robb, please please I’m so close, just like oh my god you feel so good_ ,” she is crying out and he is blind, seeing stars.

 

“Come for me, sweetheart, god I can feel your perfect fucking cunt tightening around me, come for me,” he says and then he can feel her walls constrict around him as she shudders and he is kissing her delicate collarbone “That’s it, sweetheart, that’s my girl.”

 

She lets out a breathless laugh, he had stopped moving when she came, wanting her to recover. “You stopped?”

 

“I’m in no rush…” he said truthfully.

 

“No, but I am,” she says and pushes him back on the bed. She gets off of him and kisses her way down his body, mumbling something like _these abs_ that makes him chuckle, but then she takes him in her mouth and nothing is funny after that.

 

“Fuck Ella!” he says because she’d given him no warning.

 

She looks up at him innocently, tough to do with a cock in your mouth, and he feels her tongue circling his tip. _My cock is in Ella Baratheon’s mouth._

He holds himself up, not wanting to miss a second of this and she slowly starts to bob up and down him. She’s doing this thing where her tongue circles him all the way down and then her hand is on his balls and his fingers are curling in the bed sheets and _“Holy fuck El I’m going to come, fuck fuck fuuuuuck.”_

He spends in her mouth and he wants to punch himself in the face but she swallows him all and when she gets off of him she looks delicious and rumpled and _I just came in my best friend’s mouth._

“Get up here,” he says.

 

“Don’t you need a little um…recovery time?” she asks him as she crawls her way up.

 

“Yes, so come _up_ here,” he says, his eyes looking at her with a challenging expression. She blushes and hesitates so he says, “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear. I want you to put your thighs on either side of my face so I can _feast_ on you,” he says grabbing her and kissing her, “I want your cunt to be the only thing I see.”

 

“Robb, that’s _filthy_ ,” she says, but she says it breathlessly.

 

“No…filthy is what I’m going to do to you after I make you come again…” he promised and the heat in her eyes made him twitch back to life.

 

They’d always had fun together. But never like this.

 

**

 

It was Friday at 6:30 and Ella was freaking out. As a rule, she really didn't freak out, but her family was the exception that proved the rule.  
  
She'd dressed in a silky black dress that was fitted through her waist and then flared out dramatically, stopping just above her knees. She paired it with a pair of ruby and gold earrings her grandfather had given her and a pair of strappy stilettos that she was already regretting. Her golden hair was straightened and her lips were painted a deep burgundy.  
  
She was racing around the kitchen, checking to make sure all of the hors d'oeuvres were still warm and that the flowers weren't wilting. Grey Wind was laying warily in the kitchen, his eyebrows perked and eyes following her movements like she was an insane person.  


She was about to lose it when she heard Robb come through the front door.  
  
"El? I’m so sorry!" He said and sounded as though he'd been running. "I got caught on a call but I uh wanted to pick up another bottle of that wine your mom likes. Just in case," he said sheepishly as he came into the kitchen. He looked so handsome in his suit from work and he was holding the bottle of wine like an offering to the gods and she couldn't help but walk over and kiss him.  
  
They'd never kissed just to kiss, and he hesitated for a moment before placing his hand at her neck, his thumb rubbing her cheek.  
  
"Sweetheart, you're shaking," he said as he pulled away. She wiped his lips to rid him of any evidence of her lipstick. "Everything smells delicious and you look gorgeous, it's going to be fine." She nodded and walked away to grab the martini shaker to put it out. "Besides it's me you should be worried about..."  
  
"You?" She asked with a smile, "you're not even coming to dinner. Besides they like you."  
  
"They liked me. But that was before I'd been balls deep in their precious little girl."  
  
"Robb!" She said with a laugh. "First of all don't say balls deep..." she said to him as he came up behind her at the counter and turned her around.  
  
"Don't be coy Ella," he said, his fingers trailing up and down her sides, "You know you love it when I talk dirty..." he said and picked her up and put her on the counter, pulling her legs on either side of him. "You love it when I knock that halo right off you." He said and leaned in and pressed feather light kisses to her neck. She put her hands on his chest to push him away but then his teeth found her earlobe and she was pulling him closer instead. "What was second of all?"  
  
"Hmm?" She asked in a daze. He chuckled against her skin.  
  
"You said first of all don't say balls deep... what was second of all?" He asked her and peered up to look at her. He pressed a kiss to her chest over her dress and then lower and lower until he was at her abdomen.  
  
"They uh... Robb... um... they won't ... know..." she said as he moved lower, his hands moving up her thighs.  
  
Just then they heard their intercom buzzing and they broke away as though they'd been scalded. He helped her off the counter and she smoothed her dress. She stood there dazed and he smiled at her, "Intercom's that way, sweetheart," he said smugly.  
  
"Shut up, Stark," she said as haughtily as she could and went to answer the call from their doorman.

 

***

The Lannisters were like an invading army. A beautiful, refined army, but an army nonetheless. 

 

There was Tywin, the patriarch, with his stony face and commanding voice. Tyrion, the misfit, with his quick wit and large thirst. Jaime, the golden boy, with his cocky tones and careless swagger. Cersei, the queen, with her disapproving eye and sharp tongue. Joffrey, who was just a dick. And Tommen, the puppy dog. 

 

"Do you really think Barristen has a chance?" Jaime asked him as he fixed himself a martini. His first order of business after kissing his niece had been to make her a stiff drink and urge her to hide with Tommen.

 

"I do...he's the best man for the job and we've got a loyal backing..." Robb said. He didn't want to discuss the intricacies with Jaime. The Lannisters bet on every horse. 

 

"He's certainly the best man for the job," Tyrion said, refilling the glass of wine Ella had poured him only moments before, "But when has that ever mattered?"

 

Robb nodded grimly and poured whiskey for himself, glancing at Ella who stood speaking with her grandfather. Or rather, stood while her grandfather spoke at her, nodding along. She had her hand behind her back, twirling a lock of her long hair and she looked so beautiful and innocent that he couldn't quite believe what he'd been about to do to her before they'd all arrived.

 

"Where's Trytane?" Tommen asked, looking around the room. He had gone to pour himself a glass of whiskey but Robb had talked him out of it and grabbed him a beer instead. Though he was the same age as Arya, his little sister could pick her teeth with his bones.

 

"We broke up," Ella says, taking a casual sip of her martini as though that will stop the vultures from circling.

 

"Broke up? Why? He's exactly the sort of boy you should be dating," her mother said and if he wasn't mistaken, her gaze flicked to him. Which was ridiculous, because he and Ella were just friends.

 

"Actually he's not," Ella said.

 

"With all due respect, young lady, you aren't able to look at things with the same perspective," her mother said.

 

"Well with all due respect, mother, he was fucking half of this city so that's the only  _perspective_ I care to view it from," Ella said haughtily.

 

"Couldn't keep him happy, hmm?" Joffrey cut in.

 

_Don't murder her brother. DO NOT MURDER HER BROTHER._

 

"Do  _not_ speak to your sister like that," Robb growled instead.

 

"What's it to you -" Joffrey started but Ella cut him off.

 

"Robb, can you help me in the kitchen, please?" she asked him sweetly. 

 

_Okay, you're in trouble._

 

He nodded and followed her in, trying not to wonder what she wore under her dress.

 

She turned to him and raised her eyebrows. 

 

"He's being an ass," he whisper-hissed.

 

"And this is a surprise because...?" she whispered back. Then shouted, "Not that vase!"

 

He rolled his eyes at her because they weren't fooling anyone and she stuck her tongue out at him. 

 

"He basically accused you of being frigid!" he whisper-shouts.

 

"So? He's my brother... are you keen for him to know exactly how you know that I'm  _not_ frigid?" she asks with a roll of her eyes.

 

"Well...no..." Robb admitted.

 

"Okay so cool it. God I thought you were practically going to mount me as a demonstration..." she says with a sigh.

 

He pauses for a moment, not sure of what to say. Then, half-considers, "Would you like that?" 

 

"Robb!" she protests.

 

"Okay, okay... fine. I'll behave. But if ONE of them makes a comment about the size of your perfect ass I swear to god..." he says.

 

"That's fair. No one talks bad about my ass and gets away with it," she agrees.

 

"Damn straight." 

 

And then they high fived. Because they were best friends. _Right_?

 

***

 

Her Uncle Jaime escorted her to their table. Of all those in attendance, he was the one she felt most comfortable with, and they turned heads as they walked through the crowded restaurant.

 

Her grandfather had reserved the central table in the restaurant. This was not a man who wanted a quiet family dinner. She wondered what he was up to.

 

“So Uncle, are you going to tell me why you all are here or should I prepare myself for a sneak attack after they clear the salads?” she asks.

 

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re cleverer than your brothers?” he asks her.

 

“Everyone, so?” she asks again.

 

“I’ve told them it was a waste of time. Not to see you of course! Though I would have preferred to come on my own with Tommen… but… don’t let them get to you,” he says, which isn’t an explanation but it was enough for her to know at least what to prepare for.

 

“They never get to me,” she says with a haughty point of her chin.

 

“Very good, darling,” he says with a smile, “And just remember I’m here as your protector.”

 

“As long as you make sure my martini glass is constantly filled, I’ll be just fine,” she says with a smile.

 

“Never have I been more proud…” he says genuinely.

 

***

 

Robb sat up in bed going over Barristen’s speech for next week’s rally, cross-referencing it with one he’d given a few weeks prior. Tweaking it so that it wouldn’t feel tired, but making sure that the message stayed consistent so his opponent couldn’t accuse him of flip-flopping.

 

It was nearly 11 and he was wondering when Ella would be home. He slightly regretted not going to dinner with her, knowing that her family was insane and she could have probably used another friendly face. But then again she had her uncles and Tommen, and even her grandfather. The stoic man wouldn’t be considered friendly to anyone else, but he had a soft spot for Ella that he didn’t have for either of his grandsons.

 

He was just about to call it a night when he heard the front door shut and then the clack of her high heels and moments later his door opened.

 

“Hi handsome,” she said with a smile.

 

“Hey sweetheart,” he says, putting his computer on his night stand, “How was dinner?”

 

“Fucking incredible,” she deadpanned and he smiled.

 

“What did they do this time?” he asked as she kicked off her shoes, trying not to look at her long bare legs.

 

“They want me to move back,” she said climbing up on the bed.

 

“What?!” he nearly shouted at her, “You can’t.”

 

She rolled her eyes, and moved over to him so she was straddling him, her little black dress fanning out around them. “They were all like _It’s time you take your proper place in The Family_.”

 

He rubbed her back and smirked at her dead ringer impression of her grandfather, “Why is it that your family can’t discuss your family without sounding like a cult?”

 

“Because it _is_ a cult,” she says as she reaches behind her, “A cult of money and power and green fucking eyes.”

 

“You have green eyes,” he said. _Beautiful green eyes._

“Whose side are you on anyway?” she asked, still fumbling behind her, twisting oddly in his lap.

 

“Yours, obviously,” he said, “But seriously, what are you doing back there?”

 

“I’m trying to take off my dress so you can _fuck_ me Robbert,” she said and then giggled.

 

“El are you drunk?” he asked with a smile.

 

“No!” she protested, but then she looked up at him and smiled mischievously.

 

“Oh my god you’re so cute, come here…” he said, and unzipped her dress for her and pulled it off of her. She was wearing a black lingerie set that was decidedly _not_ cute and she was nibbling his ear. “El…”

 

“ _Are you going to take advantage of me?”_ she whispered.

 

“No sweetheart, you just need to sleep,” he said. Turning her down was the hardest and easiest thing he’d ever done. Hardest, because he _really_ wanted her. Had since they were interrupted earlier that night. Easiest because he would never take advantage of anyone, least of all her.

 

She pulled away and pouted and then let out a little giggle, her forehead falling to touch his, her golden hair tickling his face. She really was too adorable for words.

 

“Can I stay here?” she asked him curiously, nuzzling his nose with hers.

 

There was no other answer. As if he would turn down Ella Baratheon in his bed. Whether as his best friend or his… lover ( _ew)_ her place was with him.

 

“Of course you can…” he said and he eased himself down, pulling her with him.

 

They lay there for a while, and her finger was tracing patterns on his arm, lulling him to sleep.

 

“I’d never leave you, you know that right?” she whispered in the darkness.

 

“I know I wouldn’t let you,” he whispered back.

 

“Robb?”

 

“Yeah El?”

 

“Will you take advantage of me in the morning?”

 

“Promise.”


	6. Stupid shouldn't feel this good

They fell into a bit of a routine. Which admittedly was mostly sex.  
  
They never talked about it, certainly didn't tell anyone about it, but sex had just... become a part of their friendship.  
  
Sundays were still their day, they were just usually spent naked. They still did everything together. It still wasn't weird for her to be sitting on the couch with Grey Wind, skin care mask on her face and her work laptop on her lap when Robb came through the door. They still cooked together and watched Maze of Lords together. Still went out with their friends on nights out. But usually once they got in the cab one of them lunged for the other.  
  
They were being stupid. Really stupid. But if you couldn't be stupid with your best friend, who could you be stupid with?  
  
"Robb are you almost done?" Ella called one Saturday evening. He had been in the shower for what felt like an hour and they were meant to be meeting Gendry, Arya and Jon.  
  
"Almost..." he said but she wasn't convinced.  
  
She walked into the bathroom and dropped her towel, stepping into the shower.  
  
"El?" He asked when she came up behind him, pressing her naked body to his back, her fingers trailing his chest and the abs that always made her want to faint.  
  
"Who else would it be?" She joked but it hung between them anyway. They didn't talk about dating. Each other or other people. In fact i t was the only thing they didn't talk about.  
  
"If you think this is going to convince me to get out faster," he says and she lets her hand move down to take his cock in her hand, "then you are sorely mistaken."  
  
She starts to rub him, kissing the lean muscles of his back and his head falls foreword, his arms bracing him against the wall.  
  
"Well if you do it right, we can both come and we won't even be late," she teased, rubbing him faster.  
  
He turned around with fire in his eyes and took her face in his hands and kissed her like his life depended on it before spinning her roughly and holding her against him. She felt his hard cock against her and one hand was at her throat the other at her breast and she wanted him so badly.  
  
"Bend over, sweetheart," he ordered.  
  
She bent over, bracing herself against the wall and wiggling her butt for him playfully. He chuckled and swatted her butt before taking her hips in his hands and poising himself at her entrance.  
  
"Fuck you're so ready for me, aren't you? Last night and this morning weren't enough for you?" He teases. She wants to tell him no. That they weren't enough. That she wasn't quite sure what would be enough, of him, of this. But she doesn't.  
  
All she says is, "Please."  
  
This was the boy who’d do anything for her, so he pushes inside of her, filling her fully in one thrust. They both let out a moan, neither it seemed had gotten used to the feeling of their bodies being connected.  
  
He rolls his hips into her and it hits her so deep that she cries out. He starts to thrust into her hard and fast. His hands are digging into her hips so harshly that she knows she’ll bruise and yet it is not hard enough.

 

“ _Yes, oh god yes Robb,”_ she calls out. He loved it when she was loud because it was so rare and she felt like giving him anything he wanted in that moment, if only he would keep doing what he was doing. _“You, oh, god you feel so fucking good.”_

She can feel as much as hear him groan at her words and she wonders at the effect she seems to have on him. But then his hand finds her nub and she can’t think at all.

 

She can’t hold herself up, she needs him so she moves back, her butt still against him and her head falling against his chest, her back arched. She reaches behind her so that her arms are around his neck, anchoring her to him.   
  
"Fuck Ella," he said holding her by the waist with one arm, his other hand cupping a breast and tweaking one of her nipples, "You have no idea how good you feel..."   
  
"Robb - I... I can't..." she cries because he's just too much. She isn't even sure what she's saying but it doesn't matter because he has her and he is pressing kisses to her cheek and her temple, and he is holding her so close and cooing nonsensically in her ear and it is completely overwhelming.

 

“That’s it sweetheart, I know, I know you’re alright,” he says softly, “I’ve got you, just let go, let go for me Ella...there’s my girl.”

 

She goes completely silent, her face contorted in pleasure as she rides out her orgasm.

 

“Fucking _god_ Ella,” he says and comes shortly after, holding onto her for support now.

 

He turns her and brushes her wet hair out of her face, pressing his lips to hers and teasing her with his tongue. She gets impatient and grabs his face, holding him to her and she captures his groan in her throat.

 

“You drive me fucking crazy,” he says to her and she feels a warm feeling rush through her that she can’t quite place.

 

“Here’s to adjoining rooms in the looney bin,” she jokes.

 

To her surprise it isn’t awkward at all when they go about the business of showering. He teases her about all of the fancy product she uses, until she convinces him to use her shampoo and then he begrudgingly admits that it _is_ better.

 

They get out of the shower and he picks out a big fluffy towel from the shelf and wraps her in it and if she isn’t mistaken presses a solemn kiss to the back of her head before he starts to dry himself.

 

_Stupid shouldn’t feel this good._

***

 

In the end, they were late anyway. 

 

It took him so much less time to get ready so he had gone into Ella's room to hang out with her while she did. It wasn't  _really_ his fault that she was wearing a swingy dress and a pair of high heeled ankle boots that made her legs completely hypnotizing. It  _may_ have been his fault that he couldn't resist her and knelt down in front of her, lifting that dress. And okay, it was  _definitely_ his fault that when she'd complained in between moans that he was going to make her burn herself with her curling iron he had ripped it out of the wall and broken the damn thing. But if you asked him it was  _absolutely_ her fault that she looked so adorable when she was annoyed with him that he'd had to make it up to her and they'd fallen into bed for at least another half hour. So really, who was to blame?

 

If Gendry, Jon or Arya thought it was odd that they showed up at The Crow an hour late and a little breathless nobody said anything and simply handed them their drinks, Jon getting off of his stool to offer it to Ella. 

 

"That piece was bullshit," Arya said to him, referencing an article that a writer for the Times wrote about Barristen. It had accused him of being elitist, in bed with big money. Which was ridiculous. First of all, all of the candidates were in bed with big money, but Barristen got more low value donations than anyone else. He was also doing more to help the city than anyone else, not that the Times would cover that. 

 

"I know...I just... the things we've been doing, are all  _really_ important, but they aren't something that grabs your attention. Not that that's the reason to do it, it's just...it would be nice to say -"

 

"Hey fucker, look at all the good I've done, you  _imbecile?_ " Arya asked. 

 

"Yeah basically..." he agreed. 

 

"Well...I've actually had an idea..." Ella said, looking at him like she was afraid to bring it up. They all turned to look at her, because Ella's ideas were  _always_ good. It was kind of annoying actually, because you could spend all day puzzling over something and then she’d walk in, listen to half the problem and solve it for you without blinking. "Gendry... do you think some of the older kids in your program might like to do some shadowing? We um... well with the spring auctions coming, we could use all the help we could get and I've spoken internally and we could set up some talks with different specialists and they could... I don't know, earn school credit or something?"

 

Gendry looked at her slack-jawed, "Yeah, they would love it! There are a few of them I know in particular...but El...Shipley's? That place has more blue bloods than anywhere else in the city. Would they really allow it?"

 

"They actually already have...I vouched for everyone so...we can take five for a semester to start...and I don't know, Jon, do you think you could get Mormont on board?" she asked him.

 

"Definitely,” Jon said, nodding, “Mormont is already one of the programs biggest donors...I'm sure he'd be happy to take on a few who are curious about what we do, and I could supervise them..." 

 

"El this is incredible, and no matter what I definitely want to help...but how exactly does this help Barristen?" Robb asked curiously.

 

"Well... I was thinking we could a) place some with you guys as well, giving the kids a stake and a place in the city will make them feel more responsible to it, but b) I think you spin the whole thing as Barristen's initiative. You could utilize that Times piece to your advantage and say  _Well yes, we are in bed with big money, and this is how we make it work for the people we want to represent._ Money isn't the issue here, it's that they are claiming he'll be beholden to it. Denying it won’t help, all you've got to do is show that you're using them and not the other way around..."  

 

"YOU ARE A FUCKING GENIUS!" he said, picking her up and spinning her around. 

 

He really couldn't blame her family for trying to get her involved with Lannister Corp. Her ability to see the larger issues, to come up with real solutions was so impressive, and she had an empathy and social understanding that the rest of her family lacked.

 

He wanted to kiss her. It surprised him just how much. Ever since that first night, he'd had a problem keeping his hands to himself. Their being late tonight proved that. But this was different. He just wanted to kiss her. Because she had been thinking how to help him when he hadn't asked her to. Because she was his best friend and the girl who drove him wild and it was getting harder to keep those things separate in his mind. Or to want to. 

 

The conversation moved on and suddenly Jon said, "Oh this one has Stark written all over her, you're up Doe."

 

The one in question was a beautiful brunette dressed far classier than most of the girls in here. If he had a type, Jon was right, she was it. 

 

Ella's glance flicked to him so quickly he almost missed it but she intercepted the girl saying, "Oh my god I love your dress! Is that a Tyrell?"

 

"Yes!" the girl said in a sing-song voice, "Yours is to die for... who -?"

 

"Oh my friend, Sansa Stark is this  _wonderful_ up and coming designer, a huge hit at Highgarden fashion week and she made it for me for my birthday," Ella explained and he watched the girl's eyes go wide at the name.

 

"Ohmygod, you're friends with  _Sansa Stark,_ that is amazing!" she said. 

 

"Yeah, actually... this is her brother Robb," Ella said pulling him by his arm, "Good looks run in the family right? Now if  _only_ Sansa could have taught him how to dress..." she teases, referencing his black jeans and white t shirt.

 

"Well no one's perfect right?" she joked and turned to him, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear and peering up at him shyly, "Hi...I'm Roslin..."

 

"I had a feeling..." Robb says, because they are all looking at him and he didn't know what to do.

 

Ella moves out of their way and pulls Arya out to the dance floor. It isn't for another half hour, after he'd extricated himself away from Roslin as gently as possible that he was able to check his phone. He had one message from Ella:  _Have fun, handsome. Headed home to cuddle with Grey Wind. Maze of Lords tomorrow?_

 

***

 

Ella felt stupid. It wasn't a feeling she was accustomed to. She didn't feel stupid because Robb was out flirting with someone else. He had every right to, he owed her nothing, he hadn't misled her. She felt stupid, because despite knowing all of that, she was still upset.

 

Things were getting murkier between them. He was her best friend, the person she depended on more than anyone, the person she cared about more than anyone, and now there was this new part of him, of them and she didn't know how to deal with it. 

 

She got home and into her comfiest pajamas, washing her face of all her make up and climbing into bed with Grey Wind. She turned on her  _dream_ playlist and pet his head. She really was exhausted. Her and Robb had been up for too long the night before, and had both worked 70 hour weeks at their respective jobs. 

 

She was about to drift off when the door to her bedroom opened.

 

"Robb?" she mumbled.

 

"Hey sweetheart," he said, climbing into bed on her other side. 

 

"What happened to Roslin?" she asked, keeping her voice as light as she could which was difficult in her exhausted state.

 

"Nothing. I just wanted to be in your bed," he said, pulling her to his side. 

 

She burrowed her head against his chest, "I'm too sleepy to have sex right now..." she said with a yawn emphasizing her point, "And don't try to convince me otherwise because you know I'll cave."

 

"I don't care, I just want to be in your bed," he said quietly. 

 

She tilts her head up and kisses him. Because he was right there and he wanted to be in her bed even if they weren’t having sex and his chest despite its muscles and bones felt better than her pillow. He kisses her back deeply, not as though he's trying to convince her of anything, but like he'd been waiting to for a long time. 

 

She really was tired. Exhausted. Overdone. But soon she was pulling him on top of her and his boxers were off and her pajama pants were off and then he was inside of her. She knew they wouldn't last long. Their exhaustion and their need was too great. He held her hands above her head and he was kissing her cheek and her neck and she was kissing any part of him she could reach.

 

"I can't Ella," he groaned in her ear, "I can't stop wanting you."

 

"Then don't try," she whispered back. 

 

***

 

Ella walked into the elegant bar on Jon's arm. He made a handsome date in his tailored black suit and he dutifully stood at her side as the photographers snapped their photo. 

 

"How ridiculous do you feel?" Ella asked him with a giggle. She had a famous name and a wardrobe to match, but the thought of anyone wanting to take her picture was something she'd never gotten used to. But if it helped Barristen and Robb then she was on board. Jon too was often sought after, the broody and gorgeous Snow heir.

 

He leaned in and whispered in her ear, "Ridiculous? With you on my arm I feel like a rock star  _baby."_

 

The picture of them after he said that, with his arm wrapped around her waist, leaning into her while she covered her mouth to hide her giggle had the gossip columnists hypothesizing they were a couple for weeks.

 

They walked up to the bar and got glasses of champagne and started mingling. It was the launch of the  _Take a Stake_ initiative and some of their colleagues were there as well as different people they knew from charity and campaign events. 

 

"Seriously, all they have is champagne," Arya said as she and Gendry approached. Gendry looked handsome but uncomfortable in his suit and Arya looked beautiful and terrifying in her black dress ( _high society's bad girl_ as the papers liked to call her).

 

"What do you need?" Jon asked her.

 

"Whiskey, what else?" she said with a smirk. 

 

He disappeared for a moment and came back with three whiskeys and handed them out to Arya and Gendry.

 

"What about  _me_?" Ella teased.

 

"You would  _never_ break the rules, Doe," Gendry said with a laugh and she stuck her tongue out at him. Though he was right, plus she liked champagne. So sue her.

 

Robb found them and he looked so gorgeous she wanted to punch him.

 

"I need you," he said to her and dragged her away. 

 

She tried to smile at people as they walked through but he was walking so quickly that she wasn't really able to. 

 

He brought her into a back corridor and said, "The Times reporter is here. He’s already _fishing_ for a story, something about labor laws or someth-“

 

“The kids aren’t employees. This is for school credit,” Ella pointed out in annoyance. _Seriously what is that guys problem?_

 

“I _know_ but the point is that even when we’re trying to help _kids_ he is looking for something,” Robb says and nearly punches the wall, “I swear to god they will do anything.”

 

She grabs him to her, “Hey, look at me,” she says and takes his face in her hands, “You are on the right side of this, Barristen is on the right side of this. All you can do is do as much good as you can in the time that you have. If we are going to _lose_ this then we are going to show them _exactly_ what they are giving up, so years from now, when they are looking at the degradation of this country they point to _this_ moment and say _That’s where it all changed_. And then we are going to keep doing more good, because we can.”

 

“So that’s the strategy? Just keep on, keeping on?” Robb asked her.

 

“You’re a Stark,” she says with a smile, stroking his cheek, “You lot always endure, right?”

 

He sighs and nods, pressing his forehead to hers. “They’re bad people Ella. Mean spirited and greedy, they are a cancer to this country.”

 

“Then you know what, Robb? Fuck. Them. All.” She says, pulling away so she can look at him. “They aren’t going to get away with this.”

 

“Fuck them all?” he says with a smile. “Why is that so funny coming from you?” he sighs, “I’m sorry I dragged you – I just… I needed you,” he admits and her heart constricts.

 

“Never apologize for that, ever. You’re my _ride or die_ , handsome,” she says teasingly, “You’re my best friend and you get to drag me wherever, whenever you need me,” she says and kisses his cheek.

 

She moved to go back to the party but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back and he kissed her.

 

He had her up against the wall and he was kissing her like he was trying to make her forget everything and it worked. When he pulled away she had stars in her eyes and she just kind of blinked at him.

 

"By the way you look stunning if it isn't obvious," he said and crooked his arm and smiled, "Ready sweetheart?"

 

"Hmm?" she asked him, not quite understanding the words. 

 

He smirked and took her hand in his, pulling it through his arm, "Don't worry, I've got you."

 

"Shut up, Stark," she said, though her legs still felt like jelly.

 

***

 

 He felt better with Ella on his arm. She was so charming that she made everyone feel at ease, from the parents of the kids who would be in the program to Barristen's biggest donors. 

 

She looked beautiful and ethereal in a delicate cream beaded dress that fell over her slim figure graciously. The loose curls in her golden hair made her look like a vintage film actress and even his hand on the small of her back didn't stop the city's most eligible bachelors from approaching her. Everyone knew about the break up between her and Trystane and the boys had come to play.

 

One such, by the name of Harry Hardyng approached with a swagger in his gait. "Ella, darling, you look beautiful," he said, leaning in and kissing her cheek. Only Robb felt her grab one of his belt loops so that he wouldn't leave her.  _Like I would leave you alone with Harry Fucking Hardying._

 

"Thank you, Harry," she said, "I'm surprised they let you in here," she teased.

 

"Ah well, they're letting all the riff raff in nowadays, wouldn't you say Stark?" he asked snidely. Robb wanted both to laugh and to punch him in his smug face. He also really wanted to say  _You can say anything you want and she'll still be in my bed tonight_. But of course, he didn't do any of those things.

 

"I need a drink handsome," Ella says to him, straightening his tie and ignoring Harry, "Shall we?"

 

"Have a good night," Robb says, not able to keep the cockiness out of his voice. It was no small thing to have Ella Baratheon, the golden girl, publicly and definitively choose you. Even if it was just as friends. And he pulls her away.

 

She leans into him and giggles, "What an asshat."

 

He's about to say something but Barristen takes to the podium.

 

"Good evening, all. Thank you so much for coming and being a part of this wonderful new initiative. It is so important for us to take care of the young people of this city. Through our work with the public school system and after school programs we have sought to make sure that every child in this city has a safe place to land, but this is taking it one step further. Thanks to all of your contributions, we are going to show our young people that they can have a future in technology or politics, or journalism or art and you should be very proud of yourselves. Now, I'm about to go off book and severely annoy my advisors, sorry Robb, but this was not my idea. The originator of this idea urged me to take full credit, but I can't do that, and I don't want to. Because this race is not about me and my ideas. I don't want to be your senator so that I can push through my policies. I want to be your senator so that I can push through your policies. I want to utilize the best and brightest of my constituents to make this a better country for  _all_ of Westeros, and that is exactly who this young lady is. So, with no further ado and before she can run out of here, may I ask the beautiful and brilliant Miss Ella Baratheon to join me on the stage?" 

 

Ella looked at him briefly in horror and he tried to convey his apologies. Barristen was right, he was going off book and so he pulled Ella to him, rubbing her back briefly and kissing her cheek. She hated public speaking and he felt the slight tremor. But Ella was Ella and she made her way up to the podium, playfully wagging her finger at Barristen who had the good grace to look ashamed. They embraced, Ella pressing a warm kiss to his cheek and then she turned back to the crowd. 

 

"I'd say thank you Barristen but you  _know_ I never lie..." she says and the crowd laughs, "I just want to say what an honor it is to be a part of this project and to genuinely thank you all for your support in this endeavor. Barristen is humble, but don't be fooled. This initiative is a drop in the bucket compared to all of the good that he has done for this country. There are children from here to Kings Landing who have warm lunches every day because of his work. Others still, who have been given the opportunity to learn in a way that makes sense to _them_ so that they might have as bright a future as any other child. He is noble and caring and without ego and he is  _exactly_ the sort of person we want representing us. So thank you all, and thank you Barristen for always being an advocate for the people of this city and this country. Have a wonderful evening everyone!"

 

Barristen kissed her cheek once more and guided her off the stage. Robb goes to meet them, grabbing two glasses of champagne on his way. 

 

"Was that okay? I think I blacked out..." Ella says with a nervous laugh as she took the glass he offered.

 

"Seriously, what is Shipley's paying you? I will double it," Barristen says, "God damn it how you're a Lannister I'll never know... I’m sorry kid, I just… I saw you there and I couldn’t…"

 

Ella waved him away, forgiving him instantly, but still looked at Robb nervously and his heart fluttered that she wanted his opinion. He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her temple. 

 

"Perfect, as usual," he said. 

 

"When are you two kids going to give us all a break and get together?" Barristen asked.

 

It was a common question of his, one that Robb consistently thwarted. Though he had to admit that lately he was having a harder time understanding the answer himself.

 

"Oh please Barristen, you know we're just friends. Isn't that right handsome?" Ella asked him flirtatiously.

 

He smirked down at her, his eyes falling to her lips. Only an hour earlier he had kissed her with every intent on making her forget her name and where she was and what they were. And it had worked. He had kissed her stupid, which was no easy feat with Ella Baratheon.

 

"Of course it is, sweetheart."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you like it! I wanted to show the strength of their friendship and have Ella save him a bit... but Robb is swoon worthy in the next chapter...


	7. In Sickness and in Health

Ella lay in bed with a trash can full of used tissues at her side. She was hugging a heating pad to her body in an attempt to get her teeth to stop chattering. Grey Wind was lying on her legs and had been all afternoon.  
  
She was sick, really sick. A high fever and sore throat. According to her doctor she was through the worst of it but it certainly didn't feel like it.  
  
She hears the front door close and Grey Wind gets up to go greet Robb and she can't suppress the slight whine that escapes her lips when he does. Her feet feel like icicles despite the two pairs of ski socks she was wearing.  
  
Moments later Robb appears, his sleeve in Grey Wind's mouth who had apparently pulled him in here.  
  
"Get out, I'm an incubus of the viral plague!" she cried. Which admittedly was pretty stupid considering he had been the one to bring her to the hospital days earlier when she’d practically fainted from her fever. He’d hardly left her side since, though she’d insisted he go in to work today for a big meeting he had.  
  
"Oh sweetheart you sound terrible," he said completely ignoring her and crossing to her side.  
  
She pushed him away feebly. She was no match for him on her best day and in her current state she may as well have been a fly for all she affected him.  
  
He pressed his warm hand to her forehead and she closed her eyes at the sensation, not having the strength to turn away heat.  
  
"Ella are you sure we shouldn't go back to the hospital? You are burning up," he said, sweeping a piece of hair out of her face.  
  
"You're pretty hot yourself," she joked and he looked at her sternly. "Doctor Pycelle said I should be through the worst of it and not to worry… but I feel like I'm going to lose my toes. I'm so cold Robb I can't get warm," she said pathetically.  
  
He looked down at her with worry but stroked her cheek, "Okay sweetheart. We're going to make it better okay? Just give me a few minutes."  
  
She nodded weakly and he left the room, but Grey Wind hopped back up on the bed and covered her legs once again.  
  
She heard Robb talking to someone on the phone in the hallway and a few minutes later he was back, wearing flannel pajama pants and a t shirt.  
  
He climbed in next to her, "No" she protested. He was willingly infecting himself which was just stupid. "The... final debate the..."  
  
"Ella it's this or the hospital," he said as he crawled in next to her.  
  
She could already feel his heat and when he pulled her into his arms she could have cried. She burrowed into him and felt his strong arms holding her to him, stroking her hair.  
  
"Robb..." she practically moaned.  
  
"I'm here sweetheart, just try to sleep, you'll feel so much better, okay?" He says, his warm lips pressed to her forehead.  
  
She nods against him and is asleep within minutes.  
  
She wakes when her door opens. Robb is sleeping peacefully at her side and she turns to find his mother entering the room.  
  
"Cat?" She asks sitting up.  
  
"How are you feeling darling?" She asks, sitting on Ella's other side.  
  
"I um... I don't know... a bit better?" She says as Cat brushes her hair behind her ears.  
  
"I see Robb finally wore himself tired with worry..." Cat said with a smile.  
  
"I um... I tried... he's so stubborn," Ella said with a small smile.  
  
"You couldn't have stopped him," Cat says, reaching to the bedside table and picking up a bowl with something that smells delicious and hot. "When he called me I thought he was going to lose his mind, so I made some of the chicken soup I always make for the children when they’re ill. Do you think you can you try to eat a little? Robb mentioned you hadn’t had an appetite in days… Here darling, let me help you."  
  
Cat dips the spoon in and offers it and Ella takes a small sip. "Oh my..." she says with a little laugh and Cat smiles and feeds her another spoonful. 

 

Her own mother had never taken care of her when she was sick, preferring instead to leave her in the hands of nannies and it felt strange now, at 25 when she was supposed to be a woman. 

 

"I'm sorry that he called you..." Ella says once she's feeling a little stronger, "He um... he didn't tell me how worried he was. He was so..."

 

"Strong," Cat says with a smile. "I know, darling. He's always going to be strong with you because he wants to take care of you. But let me tell you he was out of his mind..."

 

Ella turned to look at the man in her bed. He looked so young and peaceful when he slept, so beautiful too. 

 

"He's a good friend," Ella said quietly.

 

"Is he now?" Cat asked. 

 

The tone of her voice made Ella turn, expecting a bit of a tongue lashing. She wasn't sure if his mother knew anything, but something told her she knew more than she let on. But Cat simply smiled and raised another spoonful to her lips.

 

***

 

When Robb woke it was the middle of the night and the bed was empty. He felt groggy and languid but a bit worried. 

 

He got out of bed and walked into the living room to find Ella, sitting on the couch watching an old Audrey Hepburn movie under a blanket.

 

"Hi handsome," she says, and though her throat is still hoarse there is more strength in her voice. 

 

"Hi sweetheart," he says, so relieved to see her small smile. She had been sick for days and he'd rushed her to the hospital earlier that week when her fever spiked to 104. He’d never been so frightened as when he was admitted into her hospital room to find her asleep with far too many tubes in her, though he was assured it was just fluids.

 

He sits on the couch next to her and she drapes part of her blanket over him and then she just kind of sunk into him. They’d always been affectionate with one another, and over the past weeks of whatever it was they were doing, he had held her in every way imaginable, but this was different. She curled into him like he was her safe haven and it felt so good to be thought of that way by her. He never wanted her out of his arms again.

 

"You're a bit mad, you know that?" she asks him, looking up at him.

 

"How do you mean?" he asked, brushing some hair out of her face. 

 

"You called your mom, you risked getting ill in the last legs of the campaign you..."

 

"You think that makes me crazy?" he asks her, "It's you, El. There's nothing in this world I wouldn't ..." he started and she looked up at him with her green eyes. 

 

God how he wanted to say something to her, anything to her. He wanted to tell her that they were being stupid. That this had gotten too confusing, too muddled. That he was losing himself. But all he did was weave his fingers into her hair and pull her towards him so he could kiss her forehead. Her hand came up and held his neck and he felt her shiver. He wasn't sure though if it was the fever that caused it. Whatever it was she burrowed into him, crawling into his lap. 

 

"When I'm not so gross I'm going to kiss your face off," she mumbled.

 

He smiled, "You are not and never could be gross."

 

Unfortunately he wasn't saying it as a line. It was true. Though she looked pale and a bit tired and too thin, her nose a bit red, she was still the most beautiful girl he'd ever known and always would be.

 

"You're a flatterer, Stark," she said dismissively.

 

"Kiss me now and tell me I'm lying," he says, his voice gruff.

 

"Fine I believe you! Stop  _trying_ to get sick," she says and he can hear her smile. 

 

"Kiss me anyway," he said quietly. It had been days and god how he missed her. 

 

She looked up at him, "Robb..." 

 

"Do you not want to kiss me?" he asked. He was both teasing and nervous. Which admittedly was stupid. 

 

"I always want to kiss you," she said, her eyes widening as though she hadn't meant to. 

 

Her unwanted confession was irresistible, so he touched his lips to hers softly and she kissed him back so sweetly it nearly brought tears to his eyes. It was hesitant and slow and he thought he might know why but he kissed her more to know for sure. 

 

She pulled away after a moment and said, "Sorry...I um... can't breathe," with a self-deprecating giggle that turned into a coughing fit. She pushed off of his lap, trying to get away from him but he stood up and rubbed her back.

 

She clutched her head when she finally stopped coughing and said, "Ugh I am so lightheaded."

 

He saw her swaying, trying to keep herself upright, but he knew she must have risen to quickly and that her head must feel as heavy as a stone. He picked her up as gently as he could cradling her and her head fell against his chest. He walked towards her bedroom and she said, "I don’t take kindly to being saved, handsome, but I like you being my own personal superhero."

 

"I'll be anything you want me to be, sweetheart," he said softly, not being able to stop himself when she was so near. But it didn't matter, she was already asleep.

 

When he got sick two days later he promised Ella it had been worth it, and she never left his side.

 

***

 

"Ooh ooh get the sour watermelons!" Ella urged, gently slapping Robb's arm.

 

"I swear to god you are four years old," he said with a grin though he dumped a bunch in the bag anyway.

 

"It's  _pick and mix_ Robb, if this doesn't bring out your inner child, I fear for your soul..." she teases. 

 

"You guys could always get your own bags," Arya points out. 

 

"But Robb always steals mine anyway so what's the point?" Ella asked as though long suffering.

 

"Well you pick better candy..." Robb insisted, as though it were all her fault.

 

"Right so - ooh licorice! Not a drill go go go," she says and pushes him in that direction. 

 

She was feeling a little punch drunk. Her and Robb had finally recovered and it felt good to be back in the world. They'd both insisted on no drinking because they didn't want to tempt fate so that was how they'd ended up at the movies with Gendry, Jon and Arya. 

 

She was wearing an oversized dove grey cashmere turtleneck sweater and jeans and it felt very luxurious not to be in cocktail attire on a Saturday night. 

 

Robb came up beside her as they headed to the theatre and pulled her to him. They had been inseparable while they were sick and had a new intimacy that even their normally affectionate friendship didn't match. Plus whatever else was happening. So that is probably why, without thinking, Robb's arm went from around her shoulders to her waist and he squeezed her butt.

 

"Um... did you just grab her ass?" Jon asked. 

 

Everyone stopped at once and stared at them. Robb looked like a deer in headlights and Gendry looked like he was about to ask him to step outside.

 

"Oh..haha..um...we're so codependent... I was afraid that I'd gained weight and was joking that I had a fat ass now and um...Robb was reassuring me telling me could uh... still fit a cheek in his hand..." Ella lies lamely. She really was a terrible liar.

 

Jon and Gendry nodded as though that made a lot of sense, which made her seriously question their intelligence.

 

Arya however said, "First of all, that makes no sense  _at all_. Second of all, you told me two weeks ago that you wished your butt was bigger. Third of all, you lost a ton of weight while you were sick and Robb and I were just talking about it and we’re actually kind of worried so..."

 

Everyone looked at her again until Robb finally said, "You know what guys...she's just got a great ass."

 

Jon and Arya nodded as though that made a lot of sense, while Gendry only scowled.

 

***

 

Robb was making dinner while Ella took Grey Wind for a walk on a Sunday evening a couple of weeks later. They'd been gone for about a half hour and Robb was diligently trying to follow the instructions she'd left for him (she'd agreed to teach him how to cook after she'd taken a trip for work and he'd survived solely on takeout in her absence). 

 

She'd left her phone behind because they'd been using it as a timer so when it bleeped he looked at it, afraid he was going to overdo the chicken. 

 

It wasn't the timer though, it was a text message. From someone named Henry and the preview displayed the full text. 

 

_Hi sexy, so great meeting you the other day. Join me for a drink this week?_

 

Robb tried very hard to be calm and reasonable. Very hard. But  _who the fuck is Henry and why the fuck is he calling her sexy?_

 

First of all, Ella didn't like it when he called her sexy even when they were having sex. She thought it was weird. 

 

Second of all, why the  _fuck_ was she giving out her number to guys named Henry when they were... well whatever they were.

 

Robb felt like a chump, sitting at home, making her Chicken Provencal when she was out - okay well right now she was taking his dog for a walk, which admittedly was very nice of her but still. 

 

Just then the door opened and Ella came in chattering happily. Despite being spring it was still cold outside and the wind had made her cheeks rosy and her eyes bright and she looked so gorgeous that he wanted to vomit. 

 

"Hi handsome! Oh my god it smells so good in here," she says squeezing his bicep encouragingly.  _Stop being cute right now._ "Hmm how's the timer doing? Let me see what it looks like..." she says and bends over to look in the oven.  _Do not look at her ass._

 

She grabs the oven mitts and takes out the chicken and Robb's mouth waters. 

 

"You can shut off the timer, this is done," Ella says.

 

Robb nods and grabs her phone, then as if he hadn't seen it before says, "You've got a text."

 

She takes it from him with a light smile and reads it, smiling and shaking her head, biting her lip as she texts back.

 

_Be cool. BE COOL._

 

"Who the fuck is Henry?!" he asked.  _So not cool._

 

Ella flinched and looked at him like he'd gone insane. 

 

"He's this guy I met at our young collector's party," Ella said, setting her phone down on the counter. "Very sophisticated," she said, turning off the oven, "And intelligent," moving towards him, "Completely dreamy," she said when she was a foot away from him, "And totally, totally," she said sneaking her arms around his neck, "Gay."

 

He growled at her and she giggled. "Robb Stark, you are adorable when you're jealous."

 

"I'm not jealous..." he lied. She raised her eyebrow at him and he sighed and nodded, "Fine... but... can you blame me for wanting you all to myself?"

 

She smiled and rolled her eyes, "You  _have_ me all to yourself. I haven't been with anyone since Trystane. You're in my bed every night... but..."

 

"But we're just friends," Robb said. It sounded false and ugly.

 

"Not just friends, but best friends," Ella said, and she sounded a little defensive. But then she stood on her tip toes and whispered in his ear, "And you're the only one I want in my bed," she nibbled his ear and he was pretty sure his eyes rolled to the back of his head, "Sometimes I want you so badly I feel like I could scream."

 

"Ella" he moaned, his hands wandering down to cup her perfect ass, squeezing it roughly.

 

"Like when you do that..." she says. "When you do things like that you make me think maybe you want me just as badly..."

 

He picks her up by her butt, one hand holding her the other grasping the side of her face, "I do, I do, you silly girl. You drive me fucking crazy, don't you know that by now?"

 

"Please...Robb," she whimpers and she leans in and kisses him. 

 

He kisses her back, walking them to her bedroom where they let the madness take hold. 

 

The chicken is cold by the time they're done but they're starving and happy and it's the best chicken he's ever had.

 


	8. She's starting to let on

Ella was practically vibrating with excitement. Sansa was _back_. Only for the weekend, but still, it had been far too long.

 

Everyone was coming over for a drink at her and Robb’s before heading out, so Ella was just putting the finishing touches on getting ready when Robb entered her bedroom.

 

“Jesus Christ, Ella,” he groaned.

 

“What?” she asked innocently.

 

“Don’t what me, you know what. Why do you always insist on doing this when we are going out and I can’t touch you?” he complained, coming up behind her and kissing her bare shoulder.

 

“Well as I recall, you are the one who grabbed my ass while I was wearing a very tame outfit…” she said with a smile, taking his large hand in hers and wrapping it around her waist.

 

There were countless pictures of them over the years. Paparazzi photos from red carpets, selfies, pictures with the rest of their friends, but until recently she’d never noticed how right they looked with one another. She looked at them in the mirror, she in her grey metallic knitted backless tank top and leather leggings, him in a white t shirt and black jeans. They were prep school kids masking as club kids but together they pulled it off. He was tall and broad, she small and slim, he was dark, she was light. All of these things made them look right together, but none more so than the way he was looking at her.

 

“Stop looking at me like that,” she pleaded.

 

“Like what?” he asked, now his turn to be innocent. _Like you love me._

“Like you’re going to attack me,” she lied.

 

“I wont,” he says, pressing a kiss to her neck that causes her to shiver all over, “I can’t and you know it.”

 

The intercom buzzed and she turned around to him with a smile, _Sansa is here_ , but he was still looking at her with those blue eyes of his. _Please._

 

Slowly, as though not to spook an animal, she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was soft and sweet and the way his hands came up immediately to cup her face made her toes curl.

 

The intercom buzzed again and they broke apart and he looked at her with a question in his eyes that she couldn’t answer.

 

“Can um… can you get it?” she asked a little breathlessly. “I just want to…” she said gesturing to her face, though she should have been gesturing to her heart.

 

He nods, as though he knows and leaves to go greet their guests.

 

***

 

Something had just happened. Something real and important. Something he wanted to mark, so that he could point to it years later and say _see, right there._

 

But the intercom was buzzing and Ella was fixing her already perfect appearance and so he ignored it, like a fool.

 

He opens the door and his little sister is in his arms immediately. He holds her off the ground as they talk excitedly in one another’s ears not hearing the other.

 

Jon, Gendry, and Arya are with her and he knows they are all thinking what she is, _She’s back_. They all loved her, and she had turned into such a woman in her time away that it was difficult to think of her as the same girl who used to ask him to kill spiders for her, or the same one who would call him from her dorm room and ask him to tell her stories when she couldn’t sleep.

 

Ella comes back in the room and hurls herself into Sansa’s arms, wrapping her arms and legs around her like a koala bear. Sansa falls onto the couch dramatically and they are laughing and almost crying and it’s so sweet and innocent that it makes him miss Sansa even more.

 

When they finally pull apart he and Ella set to getting everyone drinks. She drops everything into the martini shaker and hands it to him, scrunching her nose at him in that way of hers that says _honey do_. He liked her wordlessly bossing him around because it was Ella and he’d _honey do_ whatever she wanted him to. He scrunches his nose back at her and starts shaking it.

 

“Oh my god you guys had sex,” Sansa says and the room goes silent.

 

“What?” Ella asks, staring at her. Robb’s eyes are on Gendry who seems like he may vomit at any moment and in his periphery Arya and Jon are slack-jawed.

 

“She’s right, you two totally _banged_ ,” Arya says.

 

“Arya!” he admonishes. _Because really, banged?_

 

“Wait a fucking moment…” Gendry says to him. “Are you…sleeping with my sister?”

 

“About fucking time…” Jon mutters and everyone turns to stare at him. “Oh like _you_ weren’t thinking it?”

 

“Okay wait when did this happen?” Sansa asks.

 

“Well-“ Ella starts.

 

“How many times?” Arya asks and he can see Ella shrinking under all of their gazes.

 

“Enough!” he shouts. They all stop to look at him and Ella is looking at him wide-eyed. “Whatever _has_ or _has not_ happened between Ella and me is between Ella and me. It is _no ones_ business but our own.”

 

“Okay so that means a lot. Like a real lot,” Arya says.

 

He scowls at his sister and starts shaking the martini shaker angrily. Because this is not how he pictured this all happening. He didn’t want to admit that he _had_ been thinking of this conversation taking place, but that it wasn’t about them _sleeping_ together it was about…

 

“Okay, handsome I’d say those martinis are _shaken_ now,” Ella says gently taking it from him, then turns to their friends who are all still looking at them like they aren’t quite sure what to say, “Who wants?” Ella asks calmly.

 

Four hands raise automatically and Ella winks at him before going to grab more martini glasses from the kitchen. It takes every ounce of strength in him not to follow her.

 

***

 

Ella woke up in bed alone. That hadn’t happened in months. At some point, her and Robb had simply started sleeping together, usually one or the other waking in the middle of the night because their need was too great.

 

They had been out late, really late, and it hadn’t been quite the joyful reunion she had been hoping for. It had been great to see Sansa, but the whole night had been tarnished by her fight with Gendry. He didn’t understand her and Robb and hadn’t taken kindly to her pointing out that he didn’t really need to get it.

 

Of course, she didn’t really get it either.

 

She put on her moose slippers and wandered to the bathroom to brush her teeth. She looked tired and sad and she washed her face, hoping to scrub away her supposed sins as well.

 

She went to the kitchen, hoping that Robb had made coffee. Of course he had. He’d even made the vanilla kind that she liked. For some reason this made her start to cry.

 

So that is why when Robb returned from walking Grey Wind he found her on the floor, crying into her hands.

 

“El? Sweetheart what is it?” he said rushing to her side and sitting down next to her.

 

“Go away!” she cried, like a brat. But she couldn’t look at him, with those blue eyes that wanted to drown her and the strong arms that made her feel so safe and wanted.

 

“What? Why? What did I do?” he asks in a panic.

 

“Nothing- it’s me…I…”

 

“Seriously, El? Are you really giving me the _It’s not you it’s me_ speech?” he asks her as he gets off the floor.

 

“What? No… I…” she started, getting off the floor as well.

 

“I cannot believe this… I mean, if you want to stop…I… fuck I will _find a way_ to deal with that but… don’t push me away,” he says and there is anger and hurt radiating off of him.

 

She wants to make it better, to explain, but she can’t find the words and all she can say is, “I’m sorry.”

 

It was the wrong thing to say.

 

“You should be sorry!” he growls at her, “You’re the one who started this remember? _Want to be stupid with me for a little bit?”_ he says, throwing her words back in her face and it was like a punch to the gut. “God Ella you… you could have had anyone and you just… you made me fall in love with you and now what? I don’t even get to be your _friend_?” he says and he is grabbing his keys of the counter and turning to leave.

 

_You made me fall in love with you._

“Stop!” she shouts, terrified of him walking out the door.

 

“Why should I?” he shouts back, not even turning to look at her.

 

“Because I love you, you idiot!”

 

***

 

He had never yelled at her. Not once.

 

He’d had a crummy night. Everyone thought they were fools and had wasted no time in telling him so. Now they were proved right.

 

He wasn’t being fair. She hadn’t started this, he had. He still didn’t know who kissed who first but he was the one who pulled her back in that first morning. He couldn’t give her up, not then, not now and it felt like his heart was tearing in two from loving her.

 

He had to get away from her, if he stood in that room for one more moment he would fall to his knees before her and beg.

 

“Stop!” she shouted.

 

“Why should I?” he growled at her, intent on staying mad. Anything to avoid the crushing weight in his chest.

 

“Because I love you, you idiot!” she cried and he turned so fast he probably had whiplash.

 

“You love me? You’re in love with me?” he asked her, not daring to cross to her yet.

 

“Hopelessly,” she confessed with a sigh.

 

“You, Myrcella Penelope Baratheon, are hopelessly in love with me?” he asked her incredulously.

 

“Yes, now are you going to kiss me or do you want to shout at me some more?” she said with her hands on her hips.

 

He was to her in less than two strides, picking her up and holding her to him. He caught her lips in his and her cheeks were wet from tears and his were too and it didn’t matter because _she loves me_. She’s holding onto him like she isn’t going to let him go and he kisses her again and again because she was Ella, his sweetheart, and she loved him hopelessly.

 

“I don’t want to be just friends,” she says when they finally break apart.

 

“When have we ever _really_ been just friends?” he asks her with a grin and she lets out a tear-filled giggle and kisses him again.  


	9. Legendary Loves

“Don’t answer that!” Robb said quickly as he looked over her shoulder and saw the caller ID.

 

They were spooning in bed and had been for some hours and Ella felt languid and satisfied and not her normal sharp self.

 

“It’s my grandfather, I have to answer it,” she said.

 

“He’s going to know!” Robb argued.

 

“Really? My grandfather is good but I doubt he knows where your fingers- _oh Robb stop! Stop_ , Hello?” she said, her voice immediately going from a sigh to formal. Robb dropped his fingers immediately and she fought the urge to smirk.

 

_“Myrcella you sound like you are still abed,” her grandfather’s stern voice said._

She sat up, god he could be creepy sometimes.

 

“Well it is Sunday…” she said.

 

“Only degenerates stay in bed past ten o’clock. Are you a degenerate?”

 

“Sometimes,” she said, because she couldn’t help teasing him.

 

She heard his smile in his voice, “I’m coming to Wintertown tomorrow evening. You’ll join me for dinner.”

 

“I’d be delighted,” she says genuinely. Despite his steely demeanor, her and her grandfather had an understanding and he was one of the few family members she counted on.

 

“Good, and bring Stark with you…” he says.

 

“Oh! Um… well, you see –“ she starts, looking at Robb warily. _How do I protect him?_

“This is not a discussion. Attendance is mandatory young lady,” he says gruffly.

 

“Yes sir,” she says with a yawn just to spite him.

 

“Good, I’ll see you both at Fontine at 8 o’clock,” he says and hangs up without another word.

 

“What a charming, charming man,” she says, quoting Robb from months earlier.

 

Robb kisses her shoulder and says _I told you so_ against her skin.

 

“Hey handsome?” she asks as sweetly as she can.

 

He is tugging the sheet off of her, continuing his trail of kisses across her collarbone, “Hmm?” he says distractedly. He pushes her down on the bed, propping himself up on an elbow as his finger traces around one of her nipples.

 

“You love me right? Like…that is a _definite_?” she says.

 

He looks up at her and smirks, “That is an absolute, silly girl,” and then cups a breast in his hand and leans down to flick her nipple with his tongue.

 

“Robb stop,” she sighed.

 

His head pops up, “That, sweetheart, is the second time you’ve told me to stop in as many minutes. Are you sure you love me?” he teases.

 

“Yes,” she says grabbing his face and kissing his smiling lips. “Which is why I’m so sorry. You have to come to dinner tomorrow night with my grandfather and I.”

 

“I did tell you not to pick up the phone… but no matter. Now can you please let me get back to work?” he said as though long suffering. But his hand cupped her face and he leaned into kiss her again.

 

His hand wandered back down to cup her breast and he squeezed it roughly making her gasp into his mouth. When he pulled away there was something dark in his eyes and he tweaked a nipple.

 

“Robb!” she exclaimed. She knew that look. That was the look he’d given her one night when he’d tied her up and had his way with her for hours. The same one he’d had when he’d pulled her into a coat closet at Jon’s birthday party. It meant trouble. Ella liked trouble when it involved Robb Stark.

 

“I want you on your knees, Ella,” he said gruffly.

 

She felt herself get almost impossibly wet. But she wanted to tease him, it would make it all the better.

 

“No,” she said stubbornly.

 

His eyes flickered and he gave her a cocky grin, before reaching down and sticking two fingers inside of her. He chuckled, “No, is it?” he asked as he started moving them in and out of her.

 

“You don’t get to order me around, Robb Stark,” she said. Though he did.

 

“Hmm,” he said, moving in and out of her quicker, his thumb reached up to press against her nub and she felt herself getting close.

 

“ _Right there,”_ she cried, abandoning the game because she was just so close.

 

“Right there?” he asked, pressing again.

 

“ _Yes,”_ she sighed and he stopped immediately.

 

“Maybe I wasn’t clear, Ella,” he said, “I want you on your fucking knees.”

 

If he wasn’t the same man who unabashedly worshipped her, unwaveringly protected her, and irrevocably loved her, she’d never let him speak to her this way. As it was though, she loved it. Still, she wasn’t done with him.

 

She took his hand, and brushed it up her body, then she took the two fingers that had just been inside of her and placed them in her mouth. She sucked on them and she thought his gaze was going to set her on fire. She let her tongue circle them, like she did to his cock and with a low growl he removed them and flipped her over.

 

He came behind her immediately, and pulled her hips up roughly, “Ass up, sweetheart.”

 

She did what he asked, because she was desperate for him. She arched her back so that her face and chest were still on the bed, her butt up in the air and she felt his hands on her immediately.

 

He kneaded her butt cheeks and let out a chuckle. “You drive me fucking crazy, and you know it, don’t you?”

 

“Yes…” she says, because she did know it and she loved it. He spanked her roughly and she let out a moan. “Fuck me.”

 

“Hmm… you haven’t been very well behaved,” he says, pushing the head of his cock just inside of her entrance and pulling out.

 

“ _Robb,”_ she moaned.

 

“That’s it Ella, beg for me,” he said, his fingers digging into her hips.

 

Only he could do this. Ella Baratheon never begged.

 

“Please Robb, please fuck me. I need your big hard cock,” she said, half out of reality, half just to fuck with him. “Please, show me who I belong to.”

 

“That’s my girl,” he says approvingly and shoves inside of her. They both let out a moan and he stills for a moment before he starts snapping into her. “Mine.”

 

“Oh god _yes_ ,” she whimpered as she felt him fill her again and again.

 

“That’s it sweetheart, feel my cock in your perfect cunt. You were fucking made for me, do you know that?” he said as his thrusts get harder and faster.

 

“Tell me _tell me_ ,” she cries. He was so intoxicating.

 

“This body was made for mine. This cunt was made for my cock, these hands were made for my hands,” he says as he pulls her up, holding her hands. “Your lips were made for mine,” he says and she turns so he can kiss her. Their eyes lock when they part and the game is over. He holds onto her and whispers in her ear, “And this heart, this perfect heart was made for mine. Yours keeps mine _beating_ Ella,” he confesses, his forehead against her temple.

 

She moves away from him and turns around, pushing him down on the bed so he is sitting and she climbs into his lap, impaling herself on him.

 

“Say it again,” she pleads.

 

“Your heart was made for mine, sweetheart,” he says, guiding her on him gently. “God how I love you.”

 

She feels her orgasm start to build, the way their bodies are moving together and his sweet words are undoing her.

 

She wraps her arms around his neck as she starts moving faster, “I belong to you. I’m always going to belong to you. I’m going to love you _forever_ ,” she says as her orgasm crashes around her.

 

He pulls her against him harshly as he stills, coming as well.

 

“Oh my god Ella,” he says panting. “What have you done to me?”

 

Her arms are around his neck and she rests her head on his shoulder. One hand of his holds her butt firmly and the traces patterns on her back.

 

“Whatever’s happened, has happened to us both…” she says quietly. It mattered. It would be terrifying to love someone like this if it wasn’t _him_.

 

He lies back on the bed, pulling her with him, and she spreads out, all of her resting on him.

 

“Then let them say that Ella Baratheon and Robb Stark ruined one another with love,” he says, his hand stroking through her hair. Her eyes were closed and she knew she only had moments until sleep took her. “Let them say that in every incarnation, my soul would find yours and recognize it as it’s mate.”

 

“Who will say, my love?” she asked, with a small dreamy smile on her face.

 

“Everyone. Our love will be legend.”

 

***

 

“It’s going to be okay,” Ella said as she straightened his bowtie.

 

He had uttered the same phrase to her just last night as they went to meet her grandfather for dinner. It had been true. He had known they were together, of course, and gave his blessing in his traditional gruff manner that nevertheless had pleased him, and Ella more importantly, leading to as enjoyable an evening as possible.

 

They were now at the Trident Arms, the historic hotel that was hosting Barristan’s election night party. After months of one of the most rigorous senate races in the nation’s history, one that had captured the attention not only of the North but of the entire Seven Kingdoms, the time had finally come.

 

He had been with Barristen all day, other than the morning when he’d walked to go vote with Grey Wind and Ella. He had been right, their love was already legend, as a picture of them kissing had been snapped outside the voting booth. It had taken Ella an hour to get through the paparazzi line, and only had succeeded in doing so thanks to Jon grabbing her and throwing her over his shoulder – much to the delight of her and all of the photographers.

 

“The early exit polls don’t look great, Ella, I think we need to prepare ourselves,” he said and she only smiled at him.

 

“Polls are never right, Robb, they’re like weather reports. You ran the best campaign the Seven Kingdoms has ever seen and Barristan is a candidate that only comes along once a generation. It is time. I know it,” she said and wove her fingers through his hair, “I know it.”

 

He looked into her eyes, those beautiful green eyes and he could feel her confidence infiltrating his well-honed skepticism. She was lethal and she knew it.

 

“Alright sweetheart, whatever you say,” he said and kissed her forehead, “You ready for this?”

 

“Anything handsome,” she said and took him by the hand and led him out back into the party.

 

Barristan waived them over and handed them glasses of champagne.

 

“Is he being a downer again?” Barristan asked Ella, swiping her cheek with his finger. They had known one another since Ella was born and the old man often looked at her like the daughter he’d never had.

 

“Who Robb here?” Ella asked, giving Robb a mischievous wink, “He’s Mr. Sunshine like always.”

 

Robb rolled his eyes as Barristan through his head back and laughed. He was about to retort when his phone buzzed. He went white when he saw who it was.

 

He handed it to Barristan, “It’s for you, Sir.”

 

Barristan took the phone, “Hello? This is he… yes… well.. thank you for saying that… to you and yours as well. Well fought.”

 

He was silent when he hung up and Robb was grateful when Ella’s fingers intertwined with his. Barristan met his eyes and shook his head, his eyes wide in disbelief. Without a word he turned and walked up to the podium.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen… I have just spoken with my opponent…who has conceded this race. We’ve done it, folks,” he said and Ella was the first one to scream, standing on her tiptoes to kiss Robb’s cheek. “I want to thank everyone in this room for their contributions, but one man in particular. Robb – my mentor, my son, thank you. This is what we’ve worked for. Now kiss that beautiful girlfriend of yours so we can get to work.”

 

Robb and Ella were laughing and he looked down at her and kissed her to the applause of the room. When they pulled apart her eyes were shining but she simply said, “Get to work, handsome.”

 

With only one more look at her he followed Barristan to go address the press where he would give his formal acceptance speech.

 

Robb could feel the excitement in the crowd. This was the beginning. The time for a government that worked for the people. The tide was turning.

 

Three days later, Barristan was dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found it really hard to get back into writing, so my sincere apologies if this is a little rough. Hope you enjoy it! I'll try to update this and my other fictions more regularly.


	10. Legendary Loves

"I'll do it," her Uncle Jaime said finally, interrupting the increasingly louder voices of the men in the room.

 

"Of course you'll do it," her grandfather said, as though it had been decided without her uncle's consent, which she knew was true.

 

"You won't have the support of the North," Robb's father said. 

 

It was the first time he'd said anything after greeting her and Robb when he'd arrived and the whole room turned at the sound of his steady, grave tone. 

 

"You mean I won't have your support, Stark?" her uncle asked in that way he reserved only for men he begrudgingly respected. A mixture of false bravado and genuine hurt. 

 

"Aye, you won't have mine, nor any of the vocal Northerners," Robb's father said and Ella felt Robb's fingers tracing down her spine reassuringly. 

 

It was odd in a way that they were doing this in her and Robb's apartment, they being the most junior members assembled. But since Barristan's death and funeral, their apartment had become ground zero for the Levy party (a party run by the oldest families in the country with a surprisingly more progressive platform than their counterparts across the aisle).

 

"You do realize the implications of a weak candidate now, don't you? Frey will trounce anyone that shows any signs of weakness and the party can't afford it. Not after the shooting, not now. We must remind this country where true power lies and who can do that better than a Lannister?" her grandfather spat at Ned, "You?" he finished with a guffaw as if the thought of one of the most respected men in the Seven Kingdoms running for office was a sick joke.

 

"Not me, him," Ned said gesturing to where Robb sat next to her. 

 

All eyes turned to Robb and she wanted to cover his body with her own. He looked like a little boy wearing his father's suit jacket, or rather, he looked as though that is how he felt. She knew the moment his father said it that it was the right decision. 

 

"Dad - " Robb started and Ella grabbed hold of his hand.

 

"Son, it's time. You ran Barristan's campaign, he thought of you like a son. There is no one he would trust more to stay true to his platform than you. You are my heir and you have more patience for politics than I ever did. It's time do some good, son. It's time," Ned said.

 

Ned Stark was not a man of impassioned speeches. He lead by action and always had, so when he spoke his children listened. She could feel Robb grow taller beside her, his shoulders broadening. 

 

"He's a boy!" her Uncle said and she fought the urge to glare at him. 

 

"No, he's not," her Grandfather said grimly. Begrudgingly. "The whole country saw him run Barristan's campaign. He has the name. He has the intelligence. And he has her," he finished, focusing his steely gaze on her. 

 

"Ella is NOT a political tool," Robb countered vehemently.

 

"Robb, calm down," Ella said and then turned to her grandfather. "I will support whichever candidate is chosen, Grandfather. But we will not politicize our relationship. Because it won't help. We are living together unmarried. The opposing side will smear us, and we need the moral highground. We will not hide it, we will not lie, but it does us no good to flaunt it."

 

"She's right father," her Uncle said, all thoughts now on protecting her and her reputation. "Don't use her for political capital, use her for that mind of hers. She'll advise and campaign for Robb like she did. She can be used as a political tool when they're married."

 

"Uncle Jaime!" she admonished, looking to Robb as if to say  _Isn't he crazy?_  but Robb only smiled. 

 

It was decided. Robb would run for office and their lives would never be the same again.

 

***

 

“Don’t go out there!” Ella said as she came in from the gym. He had just been about to go grab them coffee, but she handed him a to-go cup and planted a kiss on his cheek. 

 

“Why? It’s beautiful out…” he said, though he already knew.

 

“I just got mobbed out there. They want to know my workout routine. They wanted to know if we’d broken up because you hadn’t gone to work out with me. I just told them you were a lazy bum, that’s alright, right?” she said with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.

 

“What else did they say?” he asked her, taking a sip of the black coffee she’d gotten him. 

 

“You can’t sweat this stuff, Robb. I knew what we were getting into,” she said breezily and averting his gaze as she sat down at the kitchen table in front of her laptop. “What is our goal for this evening? Should I attend the Truly Gala while you go to the Heart Association or vice versa? Jaime will be at the Heart Association so I thought it might be good to split up the Lannisters, but he’d love to escort me if you feel strongly…”

 

She was so good at this. Not just the politics, though she was his chief advisor and unofficially supervised a staff of twenty (all while working full time at Shipley’s), but at circumventing the press. She’d been called every name in the book, never in his presence, but there was video online and she always found a way to bring people back to the issues. She had the Lannister knack for smiling at someone as she booked them a superior suite in hell. 

 

Robb hated that she was being crucified for ‘living in sin’ when he was the candidate. No one had dared accuse him of it. In articles about him she was always just called his ‘live-in girlfriend’. Sure there were articles calling her ‘the golden girl’, the ‘secret weapon’, the ‘golden doe’, but there were others that accused her of being a slut, and even more insanely, a social climber and gold digger. This of the girl born with a 14 carat gold spoon in her mouth, who spoke five languages, and had a rolodex that rivaled her grandfather’s. 

 

He had made it perfectly clear from the beginning that Ella was not a topic of discussion, but in the age of citizen journalists one couldn’t stop things from being written. Ella took it all with a brave face, but it was no small thing for the girl who graduated Magna Cum Laude to be called an opportunist. 

 

“Why don’t we go to both together?” he suggested as he refilled Grey Wind’s water bowl. 

 

“Hmm… that could work. If we start at the Heart Association we can even make it out before those tiresome speeches begin… both your tuxedos are hanging in the closet, but I think you should wear the navy blue one if we’re going together,” she said as she started pulling up spreadsheets related to the campaign financials. 

 

He looked her over appraisingly. Her hair was up in a ponytail and her cheeks were still flushed from the gym. A month ago in this situation he would have walked up behind her and unzipped her zip-up, peppering kisses down the creamy column of her neck. He would have stolen her away from whatever it was she was working on. But now they were a month into a three-month condensed campaign (the federal government had nixed his opponent’s proposal to hold a rapid election within a week of Barristen’s passing) and every moment they had was focused on it. 

 

So, he satisfied himself by plopping a bowl of blueberries down and sitting next to her. He pressed a kiss to her cheek and pulled up the most recent draft of his stump speech to go over the edits she’d made the night before. 

 

***

 

“Ella, Ella tell us what are you wearing?” a reporter shouted at her as she and Robb made their way down the press line at the Heart Association Fundraiser. 

 

She had been asked that question a thousand times before, and to be honest, she was wearing a to-die-for creation by Sansa that was dove-grey (the Stark ancestral color) that floated around her body making her look like a deadly storm. But that wasn’t why she was here and she was far too intelligent to be continuously treated like a flighty socialite.

 

“A dress,” she dead-panned, and before the reporter could interrupt with a follow-up she continued, “Speaking of, did you know that 10% of children in the North do not have adequate clothing in the Winter? These children are part of the 18% of Northerners who are unsure of where their next meal is coming from. Robb’s team is already coming up with a proposal to bring to the Senate on how to combat those statistics and make sure that every Northern man, woman, and child has the tools they need to not only survive, but to succeed in this country. Thank you, Stacy, have a nice night,” she said and Robb thrummed his fingers on the small of her back as he lead her on. 

 

“Nicely done, sweetheart. Though you could have taken credit for the plan, you know?” he said.

 

“I’m saving that for my memoirs, handsome,” she joked and they scrunched their noses at each other, making the photographs go wild. 

 

“Robb - Robb - what do you say to voters who think you are too young for such a position,” one of the reporters from the Times asked. It was a T-up question, the Times notoriously leaned towards the Levy party. 

 

“I say that I am young but I have been devoted to the North and its people my entire life. I have learned in the shadow of two of the greatest Statesman this nation has ever seen, my father and my late mentor, Barristen Selmy. I also say that the North voted for Mr. Selmy. While I don’t pretend to have his resume, nor even his character, I share his values. I helped form his platform and I was lucky enough to earn his trust. My opponent has none of that. He has proven time and time again that he would bring this country back into the Dark Ages if he could. Unlike my opponent, I don’t think I have all of the answers and I’m eager to learn,” he said and Ella couldn’t help but look at him starry eyed. 

 

“Well it seems you’ve got one vote tied up,” the reporter said gesturing to her. 

 

“Then I am a lucky man. Know this, I will continue to work for this country and my fellow citizens until my dying breath, and I will count myself a lucky man as long as the woman beside me places her faith in me,” he says and looks down at Ella equally starry. 

 

“So is this love, then?” The reporter asks as though he can’t help it.

 

“Afraid so,” Ella said and tugged Robb before he could launch into the diatribe about how their relationship was private. 

 

“Ella Baratheon!” Robb exclaimed quietly with a smile, “What happened to not politicising our relationship?”

 

“Oh that wasn’t political,” Ella says, “Stuart’s been wanting us to get together for years. Had to give him a little thrill,” she said and winked.

 

“Think he can stand another?” Robb asks and Ella raises an eyebrow at him. 

 

He gives her a roguish grin, the one that could make her do anything and then he takes her and dips her. Her hair and her dress are like a waterfall and had her eyes been open she would have gone blind from the flashbulbs. But Robb was kissing her and nothing else existed at all. 

 

The photo was on the cover of the paper the next morning with a headline stating: HE’S GOT HER VOTE NOW GIVE HIM YOURS

 

Two months later he became the youngest Senator in the history of the Seven Kingdoms. He proposed a week later.


	11. Just a hunch

“I still remember the night Ella and Robb met. Anyone with eyes could see the affect they had on one another…” Sansa started in her maid-of-honor speech. 

 

_SIX YEARS EARLIER_

 

_“You didn’t tell me it would be this cold!” Ella said, shivering as they walked out of the Wintertown rail station._

 

_“It’s the North, Ella…what did you expect?” Sansa asks with a roll of her eyes, though she wraps her arm around her best friend and college roommate and rubs her arm anyway._

 

_“N-not this,” Ella says with chattering lips and a giggle. Sansa hadn’t even buttoned her coat._

 

_They stood outside the rail station in the dark as Sansa nervously checked her phone. Someone was meant to be grabbing them, though Ella couldn’t remember which of the many family members she had named. She only remembered Sansa noting that for their sakes she hoped it wasn’t Arya and after her little sister had come to visit over Homecoming, Ella had to agree. She adored her, but by the gods if that girl wasn’t bonkers._

 

_A dark Range Rover pulls up and a figure jumps out so quickly, she can barely even register it, “Dove I’m so sorry, there was this woman with a flat tire and then my phone couldn’t get a signal and …. I’m so sorry.”_

 

_The man wraps his arms around Sansa who holds him tightly squealing. When they pull apart, Ella gets her first look at him and…oh god._

 

_“Hi, I think I’m the only Stark you haven’t met! I’m Robb,” he says with a grin that could cure cancer._

 

_“H-ii, I-I’m-“ she starts, her chattering teeth covering up the fact that she’d gone stupid suddenly._

 

_“Freezing?” he asks with a sympathetic smile and a chuckle. “Come on, the car’s warm I promise,” he says, taking her and Sansa’s bags._

 

_She gets into the back seat and listens to Robb and Sansa’s easy chatter and sibling banter. Robb was mentioning a new job he was up for._

 

_“Do you think Selmy will really look at anyone else?” Sansa is asking him._

 

_“Barristen?” Ella asks, her breathing having returned to normal._

 

_“You know him?” Robb asks, his eyes meeting hers in the rearview mirror._

 

_“Yes… I have since I was born… he um… won’t be an easy boss,” she says with a small smile, “But he’d be a great one.”_

 

_Robb chuckles, “Yeah, he’s a bit of a hardass, always has been, huh Dove? But I think he may try for the senate in a few years and I’d like to be a part of the campaign.”_

 

_“I didn’t know you knew him!” Sansa said turning around with a smile. It was like she had lost 5 years being in the presence of her beloved older brother. She knew that Sansa would call her brother when she couldn’t sleep, that they wrote each other letters because they both loved getting mail._

 

_She knew he’d be handsome, all of the Stark children were adorable and Sansa was the most beautiful girl she’d ever met, but nothing could’ve prepared her for the flat-tire mending, socially conscious, dream boat of a specimen whose hand gripping the wheel made her see stars._

 

_“He gave me my first internship actually, do you… I mean… would you… if you want me to put in a good word, I don’t know what good it would do but… uh… I’d be happy to?” She said, uncharacteristically rambly._

 

_“I uh… well what makes you think I’m worth you staking your reputation on me?” Robb asked with a smile, glancing at her in the rearview mirror and stopping her heart._

 

_“Just a hunch,” Ella said with a smile of her own._

 

_“Ella’s hunches are never wrong,” Sansa told her brother conspiratorially, “She can spot a good thing from a mile away.”_

 

_“Is that right?” Robb asked as he pulled into their ancestral home, a sleepy castle that reminded her of a fairytale her Uncle Tyrion had read to hear as a little girl._

 

_“Just don’t screw up my track record, Stark,” she joked._

 

PRESENT DAY

 

“That night, Robb asked how she could know if he was worth staking her reputation on. I told him Ella’s hunches were never wrong. And they haven’t been since. Ella, my dearest friend, my darling sister, never forget that he’s a man you can stake your reputation, your heart, your very life on. And Robb, my beloved older brother… don’t screw up her track record,” Sansa joked and the wedding guests chuckled. She raised her glass, looking elegant in the bridesmaid gown she’d designed herself, “To the bride and groom, congratulations, I love you both!”

 

Ella, in a custom Sansa Stark gown, wipes tears from her eyes as she and Robb kiss. She’d done it, she’d married her best friend. Betting on him was the best decision she’d ever made, and she’d never stop.

 

 

_***_

 

“For a long time, Robb and Ella thought they were friends. The rest of us,” Jon says, gesturing behind him to the wedding party that consisted of Robb’s siblings and Gendry, “Were not so convinced. Well, maybe Gendry but…” he pauses as the crowd laughs. “They put up a good effort…”

 

_SIX YEARS EARLIER_

 

_Dinner had been torture. His siblings had spent the whole time asking Ella questions, so of course he had learned that she was smart and funny and kind even though she hadn’t looked his way once. He’d known she was pretty, he’d seen that much in the dark but sitting across from her at dinner was like sitting near the sun. Blinding and vibrant._

 

_He was only home for the holiday, and then he and Jon were moving into an apartment so he was in the midst of packing and he was having a hard time finding a shirt to wear out tonight. As he was in the midst of looking he heard a delicate shriek and noticed that his puppy Grey Wind was gone. He bolted into the next room, not sure if Ella was frightened of dogs._

 

_“I’m so sorry,” she was saying, cradling Grey Wind in her arms, “So so sorry.”_

 

_“Ella?” he asks, and when she looks up at him with wide eyes he is suddenly very aware that he wasn’t wearing a shirt, that he didn’t know her, and that he had just barged into her bedroom unannounced._

 

_“I’m so sorry, Robb! I didn’t see him, and I think I stepped on his poor little paw?” she says, looking down at Grey Wind with concern, though his tail was thwacking happily as he tried to reach her face to lick._

 

_“I uh…think he’ll be fine,” Robb said with a chuckle._

 

_“Is that so, handsome?” she says and then looks at him and blushes, “I meant the dog… not that you’re not or anything…um… I’m mortified…”_

 

_“No, you’re a sweetheart…I’m mortified, I am the one shirtless,” he says._

 

_“Oh trust me, I know,” she teases and now he is blushing. “Are you coming out with us?”_

 

_“Absolutely. There is no way you two are going out unchaperoned…” he says, shaking his head at the preposterous idea._

 

_“You do realize we are in college, right?” she asks him with a raise of her eyebrow. “We go out all of the time unchaperoned.”_

 

_“Hmm… fine, then. No chaperoning then. How about as friends?” he asks, hoping she won’t hear the desperation in his voice. He had to know this girl._

 

_She looks at him appraisingly and then smiles, “Friends. I like it.”_

 

_“Good, well then… I’m going to go find a shirt…” he says and she stands up too, Grey Wind had clearly interrupted her getting ready. “Grey Wind, you coming buddy?”_

 

_Grey Wind looks at him and then Ella, and then jumps on her bed. “Guess not.”_

 

_She gives him a sympathetic smile then climbs on the bed, rubbing the puppy’s belly, and Robb closes the door to her peals of laughter._

 

_Friends, he thinks and smiles. Then he thinks of Ella’s irresistible giggle, those green eyes that could conquer nations, and golden hair he wanted to feel in between his fingers and leaned back against the door. It took everything in him not to rush back in and propose something, anything else. But then he thought of the mischievous glimmer in her eyes when she teased Arya, or the way she’d made his father throw his head back and laugh and he thought, there are worse fates than to be friends with a girl like that. Not that he could have named one in the moment._

 

PRESENT DAY

 

“So the rest of us watched as they danced around each other, we all smiled behind our hands as they became roommates, we rolled our eyes as the pronounced themselves best friends, or _ride or die_ as Ella likes to say. If there is one thing I have learned it is that you can hide the truth, deny it, fight it, but sooner or later, it will make itself known. So, to Ella and Robb, who are one of the great truths in the world, I wish you both a lifetime of happiness with your best friend. Cheers!” Jon finished. 

 

Robb raised his glass to his friend and then pulled his new wife up from her seat for their first dance. 

 

She was the most beautiful bride he’d ever seen and her body fit so easily with his as he moved her gracefully across the floor. 

 

“So handsome, apparently everyone knew but us?” She says, that teasing lilt in her voice that she reserved exclusively for him. 

 

“Sorry sweetheart, everyone knew but you,” he says, thinking back to the first night they met. The way he’d known the moment Grey Wind had hopped on her bed that she’d change him forever. 

 

“Yeah well, I had a hunch,” she says with that lazy smile, “And you know what they say about my hunches…” 

 

There was nothing else to say. They’d always been destined for one another and everyone had always known it. So he did the only thing that made sense. He leaned down and kissed his wife, and neither of them heard the applause. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Not to beg but I would love some comments! It's been so hard getting back into writing and it's so helpful to have feedback! Hope you enjoy xo


	12. Pitter Patter

**ONE YEAR LATER**

 

It was a gorgeous autumn Saturday and he and Ella had taken Grey Wind on a long walk through the city. They stopped to get coffee at Ella’s favorite coffee shop (half for their vanilla lattes, half for the fact that they not only allowed but welcomed dogs). 

 

Robb had just gotten back from the capital, and they had both left their phones at home, intent on making up for the time lost over the past few weeks. It seemed crazy that it was already time for another election, but they were ramping up campaigning and the two of them had to actively schedule alone time. It was annoying to have to go to such lengths, but better than the alternative. 

 

He had considered not running again. He wanted to devote his time to the people, but the daily workings of politics turned his stomach and he was away from Ella more than he wanted (though a trip to the grocery store was longer than he wanted). But then the stock market had crashed, and shipyard had closed, the owners of the companies preferring to work with less expensive companies in Essos, and when they’d seen the platform of the other party, he and Ella decided it was the right thing to do.

 

They walked in and stood in line. He excused himself to use the restroom and when he returned he was surprised to find Grey Wind planted in front of Ella, teeth bared at a very bewildered guy.

 

“Everything alright, Ella?” he said warily, wondering what could have caused such a reaction.

 

“Um… I think so… listen I’m so sorry, Ramsay was it? He’s not usually like this,” Ella was saying as she knelt down to soothe Grey Wind. 

 

“Not to worry, lovely girl, I’ve hounds of my own who are just as protective…” the guy said and to be honest, he gave Robb the creeps, so he only pet Grey Wind’s head as he walked away. 

 

Grey Wind relaxed as soon as he walked out the door, but still stood so close to Ella he was practically on top of her. 

 

“Was he bothering you?” Robb asked her. 

 

“No…he just asked for directions…Grey Wind just flipped...” Ella says, but she holds Grey Wind’s leash to her anyway like a security blanket. She needn’t have, not only because Robb was there, but because Grey Wind would never leave her. 

 

They move up the line and he orders a black coffee for himself and orders Ella a vanilla latte.

 

“Actually,” she says, “Can I please have a hot apple cider?” When he looks at her questioningly she rolls her eyes and says, “It’s October, Robb. Get on board!”

 

He laughs and shakes his head. Ella _loved_ Fall. She loved sweaters and Thanksgiving and football. She loved the changing foliage and _tightsandbootsweather_ which really was just cold weather. But he loved cuddling with her in front of the fire at Winterfell, and pressing kisses to her cold cheeks, and feeling her cashmere socks wandering up and down his calves, so he kind of loved Fall too. 

 

They take their drinks to go and walk home. They both have work to catch up on when they get there, he in the study, she in the living room. They weren’t allowed to do work in the same room anymore. He had ‘lost his privileges’ after many warnings. So he didn’t realize that she wasn’t getting ready for the evening until he came out of their bedroom to find her in flannel pajamas laying on the couch with Grey Wind laying beside her, resting his head on her chest. 

 

She whistled when she saw him and he plopped a kiss on her forehead, and lifted her legs so that he could sit down, lowering them back onto his lap.

 

“You know, Ella… I know that you are an international style icon,” (the Times words, not his), “But I think even _you_ may have a hard time making flannel pajamas a thing.”

 

She giggles, “Oh these? These aren’t pajamas, this is a couture tartan playsuit…but you know what, handsome? I’m kind of not feeling great and just want to stay in tonight. Will you make my apologies to the boys?” 

 

“Of course, but what is it?” he asks, flashbacks of when she’d had to be rushed to the hospital when they’d first gotten together. He pressed the back of his hand to her forehead, but it didn’t feel any warmer than usual. Still, they really hadn’t seen much of each other and he didn’t like the idea of her on her own if she was feeling ill, “Do you want me to stay here with you?”

 

“Oh…no it’s just, um, my stomach and I don’t want to drink…I just want to lay low.” she says evasively.

 

“Is it your period?” he asks her and she smacks him with a pillow. Ella didn’t talk about such things, but being raised with two sisters had made him immune to it. 

 

“No it’s not! I just don’t _feel_ well… do you mind putting the kettle on before you go?” she asked him as though it were a huge favor. 

 

“Of course, sweetheart, I’ll pull out some chamomile tea” he says and kisses her forehead, he pets Grey Wind’s head, “Take good care of our girl, okay buddy?”

 

He meets Jon and Gendry at the bar, he hadn’t seen them in ages either and he feels his stress levels lowering measurably as they jokingly greet him as _Senator Stark._ Gendry hands him a glass of whiskey and enquires after Ella. 

 

“She just wasn’t feeling well, plus she didn’t want to spend another night with you lot,” he jokes. 

 

They both roll their eyes, not believing him for a second. With him traveling so much for work, Ella saw more of them than ever. When Robb was out of town, Jon would go over to check on her or suggest taking her out for dinner (though usually this earned him a home cooked meal from Ella). He’d actually been offended when Robb had asked him to, _Do you really think I hadn’t thought of that?_

 

“Which is why she’s texting me right now,” Jon says, holding up his phone to show Robb a gif Ella had sent him of a cat falling off of a countertop. 

 

“Why didn’t she send _me_ that?” Gendry complains much to Jon’s delight.

 

Robb rolls his eyes, “Seriously, why the fuck is she so irresistible? You two are her brother and her almost brother and you’re fighting over her. You should have seen the way Grey Wind reacted when some guy approached her today at the coffee shop. I thought he was going to rip out his jugular.”

 

“Yeah, but that’s Grey Wind. He’s usually sweet-natured but he’s crazy overprotective of her. He nearly bit _me_ the other day,” Jon says. 

 

“Yeah but this was differ- wait, he almost bit _you?”_ Robb asks. It didn’t make any sense. Grey Wind loved and trusted Jon. “HOLY SHIT.” 

 

Robb sprinted out of the bar, hailing a taxi and urging the man to speed, offering to pay for the ticket if he got one.

 

He cursed the slow moving elevator and busted through their front door as fast as he could. 

 

“You’re pregnant!”

 

***

 

She was wallowing on the couch with Grey Wind, wishing she could be out with the boys. She hadn’t really lied to Robb. She didn’t feel well and it was her stomach. But she hadn’t really told the truth either. 

 

She was trying to find something to watch when she heard their front door crash open and she popped her head up, afraid it might be an intruder and all of a sudden Robb was there. 

 

“You’re pregnant!” he exclaimed. 

 

“What?” she asked him, stalling.

 

“You heard me,” he said. He looked like a King, enormous and regal. It made her feel like a child. 

 

She juts her chin forward, defiant. “So what if I am?”

 

“You’re having my baby, Ella Baratheon?” he asked her, crossing the room.

 

“Well I like to think of it as _our_ baby,” she muttered and he was already to her, lifting her off the couch.

 

He cradled her in his arms and she propped herself up with an arm on his shoulder. 

 

He was grinning like an idiot, and she couldn’t help grinning back. Because he wasn’t upset. Because he was happy to the point of tears. Because she was growing a little life in her that would be all the best parts of both of them. 

 

“You’re having our child,” he said with an incredulous cry-laugh. 

 

“I know, handsome… I… I know we didn’t plan it or –“ she starts but he kisses her. 

 

“All the best things in my life have been unplanned. You, most of all, sweetheart” he says. 

 

“You’re going to be a Daddy, Robb Stark…” she says, because it was the happiest thing of all. Not just that she’d get to have this child, that this child would have _him_. 

 

“Say that again,” he said. 

 

She rubbed her nose against his, “You’re going to be a Daddy,” she says cupping the side of his face in her hand, kissing his nose and his cheek and his forehead. 

 

“I never knew I could love you more, Ella,” he said and then he captured her lips. 

 

Her stomachache forgotten she deepens the kiss, and he is already walking her into their bedroom. His innate sense of fatherhood already triggered, for where he would usually toss her on the bed and attack her, he lowered her gently, never breaking their kiss. 

 

She unbuttoned his shirt as he climbed on top of her and he was ridding her of hers. They made quick work of the rest of their clothes and then her rolled them so that she was sitting astride him. 

 

He sat up and she wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck, determined to get as close as physically possible. She sunk onto him and he let out a guttural moan, his forehead falling against hers. 

 

She took up a steady rhythm, and he supported her with an arm around her back, the other hand tangled in her hair. 

 

“Oh my love, my only love,” he whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

 

They made love until they were both sweaty and panting so delirious with happiness and then they made love again for good measure. 

 

When she woke, there was a vase of Winter Roses on her night table with a note. 

 

_To my darling wife,_

 

_Every moment with you has been more than I dare hoped for, but nothing could have prepared me for the overwhelming joy I feel at the thought of you having our baby._

 

_Our child is going to be the luckiest in the world, for you will be the most incredible mother. You have spoiled me rotten with happiness, and I can only endeavour to do the same._

 

_With all my love and gratitude,_

_Robb_

 

Ella rose, wrapping her robe around her and delighted in finding her husband enjoying his coffee in one of the armchairs of the living room.

 

She curled up in his lap, reading the newspaper story he was reading. 

 

“Thank you for the flowers,” she said, “They’re beautiful.”

 

“You’re beautiful,” he said, “Thank you for my life.”

 

She tucked her head under his chin, listening to the comforting beat of his heart. She pressed a hand to her stomach, something she’d been doing without thinking about it ever since the doctor had confirmed her pregnancy.

 

_We love you already, little baby. More than we knew we could. Stay safe, little one, and know that you are bringing so much joy with you._


	13. Love is the Death of Duty

If it was possible, Ella got even more beautiful through pregnancy. He’d heard about the glow of course, but he’d never understood it until he saw her swelling with his child. She was luminous, a Madonna, and he worshipped at her altar. 

 

Grey Wind never let up. His love for the two of them had transferred immediately and irrevocably to the little life growing inside of Ella. He stood guard at all hours of the day, and while Ella called him her loyal fool, Robb saw the way she’d grip his collar when strangers approached, not willing to lose her protector. 

 

It turned out that all of the stereotypes of pregnancy are true. Ella was nearly insatiable, waking him at all hours of the night, either for him or for ice cream and he gave her both eagerly. 

 

His normally dauntless girl would start crying at commercials, basically anything that had a dog or a child…and even occasionally hamburgers, but that was only because she wasn’t eating one at the time. He learned quite quickly _not_ to tease her about this newfound trait of hers, even though he’d quite enjoyed the make-up sex after that row. But even still, whenever she’d start crying he’d get to stop what he was doing and gather her in his arms, so even this was a welcome part of it all. 

 

All the while, he was governing and campaigning. The press and the public alike had gone mad for the news of the baby, which had been leaked by Ella’s (now former) doctor’s office, and every day gifts and clothing were sent to his campaign office for his unborn child. After having each checked thoroughly for anything sinister, he’d been anonymously donating them to the local orphanages. He and Ella had more than enough, with both soon to be first time grandmothers sending gifts. Catelyn’s always came with a handwritten note about how happy she was, or a box of Ella’s favourite cookies, while Cersei’s always contained _strict_ instructions regarding the washing and storing of each object. _Not that any son of mine will be caught dead wearing a red velvet paperboy cap._

 

After long debate, they’d heeded his parents counsel to find out the sex of the baby. He was excited, already imagining all the things they could do together, but he knew that the moment Ella was ready they’d try again until they had a little girl just like Ella, wanting to give his boy the gift of a little sister, like Sansa and Arya had been for him.

 

They were at a campaign event, and Ella, despite being six months pregnant looked elegant in her navy blue sheath dress, her golden hair pulled back into a youthful ponytail, five inch heels on her feet in spite of it all. She was born to be a politician, but settled into the role as a politician’s wife just as gracefully. She was his chief advisor, though she wasn’t on the payroll, and by far his best campaigner. 

 

He was standing talking to a former classmate of Gendry’s who had fallen on hard times due to the closing of the shipyard. It was an issue near to Robb’s heart, one of the reasons he’d decided to run again, and he was planning an initiative that would incorporate all of the hard workers into new ventures, hopefully creating three thousand jobs within a few short weeks. 

 

“I just – I respect you Mr. Stark, I know your family does a lot of good in this country, but I… the other candidate is promising quite a lot,” the man is saying and he is near to the point of tears. Northerners were loyal, he knew that he wanted to vote for him, but loyalty, like all things, is relative and his first loyalty was to his own family, his wife at his side and their adorable little girl. 

 

“I understand, Thomas… I really do… I want you to do what is right for your family, and I know that my opponent is making a lot of promises. I know I can’t say that I understand what you must be going through, because I don’t. But you’re a husband and a father who wants to take care of the people he loves and I couldn’t respect you more… I want to help your family and so many others get back on their feet and I think that I’m the person-“

 

“Lily come back here!” his wife said as their little girl wandered off. 

 

She was walking towards Ella who was in a conversation with some of his largest donors. They were a bunch of old men who she knew through her grandfather, and he knew she must be fighting a yawn even as she faked a giggle. The little girl tugged on her dress and Ella looked down. 

 

She stopped speaking to the men in front of her immediately and then bent down, “Hi there, beauty,” she said to the three year old. 

 

“Are you a princess?” the little girl asked her, bringing a grin to Robb’s face. He couldn’t imagine what Ella must look like to her, so beautiful and poised.

 

“Nope, sadly I’m just a normal girl. Though that man over there treats me like one,” she said pointing at Robb. “Are _you_ a princess?” Ella asked with a smile. 

 

“No…” the girl said, “But Daddy tells me I’m his.”

 

Ella giggled, “Well then we are lucky indeed, aren’t we little one?”

 

Then, as if it were perfectly normal, Ella sits down on the floor, crossing her legs elegantly and the little girl sits next to her. 

 

“Do you have a baby in there?” the little girl asks in a way that only a child can.

 

“Really I’m so sorry,” Thomas’ wife says to him, “Your poor wife, should I –“

 

“Trust me, this is the best part of her evening,” Robb said truthfully. 

 

“I do!” Ella said excitedly, “It’s a little baby boy. I think he’s going to be a little bit _wild_ because he kicks kicks kicks all day long…” 

 

“He does?” Lily asks. 

 

“Mmmhm, want to feel?” Ella asks her. The little girl nods and Ella takes her hand in hers and places it on her stomach. All of a sudden the two start giggling together. 

 

Ella didn’t think about what she was doing. She didn’t see the photographers taking pictures or the donors taking out their checkbooks. She didn’t know that she was instilling the room with more confidence in him than any speech ever could. She was just sitting on the ground talking to a little girl because she wanted to. 

 

Thomas turns back to him and says, “You may not know what it’s like to lose your job, Mr. Stark, but I’d wager you know what it’s like to have people you’d do anything for.”

 

“Yes, sir, I do,” Robb agrees. He hardly ever spoke of the baby on the campaign trail, and he only spoke of Ella when he was mentioning one of her contributions. He didn’t like to pose himself as a family man because it always came out false and he wouldn’t politicize the most important parts of his life. “There is nothing I wouldn’t do for Ella or our child just like there is nothing you wouldn’t do for your wife and Lily. I understand that my opponent is promising some very quick solutions, but I had my advisors look into his plans and every one of them is unsustainable, and would likely land with you and many others back in the same spot within six months. I don’t want to just fix the problem, I want to fix the _cause_ , and I promise you that I won’t stop until I do.”

 

Thomas looks at his wife and she rubs his arm, _the silent conversations between a husband and wife. How often have Ella and I had the same?_

 

Lily comes walking over, tugging Ella by the hand who graciously greets her parents. 

 

“Daddy, you said we could get ice cream after, can we, can we?” Lily asks. 

 

“Ice cream?” Ella asks with a small smile.

 

“Oh you poor thing!” Thomas’ wife says, “Six months is it? I _survived_ on cookie dough ice cream…” 

 

“Don’t say poor me, say poor Robb! This man had to go to three different grocery stores the other night to find me the kind I wanted…,” she said, very gracefully leaving out the fact that she’d licked the melted ice-cream off of him though she bit her lip when he smiled at her. 

 

“I think its clear that the cocktail campaign events are a thing of the past…next one is at an ice cream shop, deal?” he asks her with a grin. 

 

“We’ll be there,” Thomas says, “With my union rep,” he adds and holds out his hand.

 

Robb shakes it and says, “Looking forward to seeing you all…”

 

“Bye Princess Ella,” Lily says.

 

“Bye Princess Lily,” Ella says, stroking the girl’s cheek. 

 

As they walked away he pulled Ella to him and said, “You do realise you just got me the shipyard union, right?”

 

“Well, Princesses hold a _lot_ of sway these days,” Ella joked with a blush. “Hey handsome, can we-“

 

“You can get as many scoops as you want, sweetheart,” he says to her and she smiles, kissing his cheek, before going back over to the donors she had been speaking with and making her apologies. 

 

***

 

Ella was at home on Thursday night a week later, looking at more paint samples for the nursery. All of a sudden, Grey Wind came to her and started sniffing all around her. 

 

“What is it, boy?,” she asked but then she _felt_ it. _No. No no no no no._

 

Robb was in King’s Landing, she knew he’d hop on a plane as soon as she called, but it wouldn’t be enough time. She grabbed her phone and dialled the first person she thought of. He picked up on the first ring like he always did when she called. 

 

“Ella, dear,” he said and despite the pain she was immediately calmed. 

 

“There’s something wrong with the baby, I…I need you Dad,” she said in a voice so small, as though she were afraid of scaring the life inside of her. 

 

“I will be there in ten minutes, okay, honey? Ten minutes. Now I want you to sit down and do everything you can not to worry. You and my grandson are going to be just fine,” he assured her. 

 

“Okay, okay, I’ll see you soon,” she said. 

 

She sat there and tried to think about something, anything else. Her phone started buzzing and she saw _Robb Stark_ on the caller ID. 

 

“H-hi handsome…,” she said, not wanting to worry him until she knew something more.

 

“You are going to be _fine,_ sweetheart, I promise…,” he said. _Of course he called him._ “I am getting on the next plane and I will be there as soon as I can. Just be brave my darling, alright? You’re the bravest person I know, Ella, and you and and our boy are going to fine.”

 

 _This_ was the reason she didn’t call him. If she hadn’t spoken to him, she could have told herself that it was _fine_ he wasn’t there. That she was self-sufficient, that this was just routine. But he _crumbled_ her every time and all she wanted in that moment was to be in his arms. 

 

“Just hurry, please,” she said, hating how weak she sounded, “Be safe…but hurry,” she said and wiped the stubborn tears that fell. 

 

“I will, I’ll be there before you know it, I love you,” he said. 

 

“Love you too,” she said, as she heard her front door open. 

 

Grey Wind stood guard until the familiar figure strode in the room. 

 

“There’s my brave girl,” he said as he came over, and as though she were no older than five, he picked her up in his arms. 

 

“Thanks for coming, Dad,” she said, as she wrapped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his broad shoulder. 

 

“Nothing could have kept me away,” Ned Stark said into her hair. 

 

_Hold on, little baby, just a little while longer. Hold on so you can grow big and strong, another in a long line of honourable Stark men._


	14. A Change of Plans

 

Robb rushed through the doors of the hospital. All around men and women in lab coats walked this way and that, clipboards in their hands. So many different lives on those clipboards, but in the moment, there were only two that mattered to him.

 

He went up to the reception desk.

 

“Excuse me, my wife was brought in here earlier this evening-” he started.

 

“You’re Senator Stark - I voted for you,” the woman said.

 

“Th-thank you, um…but my wife? She came in her earlier this evening. She’s pregnant and there were some…complications?,” he asked, trying to find the right word for it.

 

“Oh, yes Senator let me just find her-,” she said scanning the computer system. “She’s in room 511, you can go see her.”

 

“And…do you know…does it say…,” he started but he couldn’t find the words. His phone had died on the plane home so he hadn’t received an update in hours.

 

“I only know where she is, Senator…,” the woman said as kindly as she could. No doubt she was in this position all the time, desperate loved ones wanting to prepare themselves for whatever would be coming next. “But it is our regular ward…she was moved from the ICU. She’s in recovery.”

 

His heart was on a rollercoaster. The idea of his girl, his precious girl, his sweetheart in the ICU made his vision go black, but the word recovery game him the bit of hope it was meant to. He almost daren’t ask his second question, but he couldn’t not.

 

“Does it… does it say anything about the child?,” he asked. _My son_.

 

“I’m afraid not, Senator. The doctor will be checking in with her again shortly though, he’ll be able to tell you everything you need to know,” she said.

 

“Thank you, Cassie,” he said, absentmindedly reading her nametag.

 

He followed the signs to the elevator. There was an older couple crying on it, and a separate bored looking doctor. They all looked at him in confusion, knowing they knew him from somewhere but not quite sure where. He ignored them, and watched the numbers tick up to the 5th floor.

 

He wandered through the halls until he found 511. He had rushed here, hardly stopped to breathe since he’d gotten the call from his father, and yet, now that he was here he was having a hard time finding the courage to go inside.

 

But then he thought of Ella, of the way she took care of him, and the love she had in her eyes when he took care of her. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her, nothing he wouldn’t face. Even this.

 

He walked in slowly, not sure if there would be nurses or other patients. He should have known better on the latter. Eddard Stark wouldn’t let any daughter of his deal with something such as this in public.

 

He saw Ella on the bed. She had tubes in her, and even though he’d told himself she would, it still frightened him - even more so than when she was in the hospital when they were first seeing one another.

 

His father was there, sitting by her bed. He wasn’t reading, or checking his phone. Just sitting and watching her sleep. He would stand guard all night, all week, keeping a silent vigil over the girl he called daughter. Robb loved him for that, loved him and needed him. He was the man who had checked underneath the bed and in the closet for monsters, and to this day was banishing them still.

 

“Son,” his father said when he noticed him.

 

“Dad,” Robb said, and his heart was threatening to rip out of his chest because he’d been so scared and he was scared still but she was alive, and because he still wasn’t sure what had happened to his son, and it was so hard to love so many precious things. An unwelcome sob wracked his body, and his father stood quickly, crossing the room to him and took him into his arms like he was nothing more than a little boy.

 

“They’re alright,” he said, uttering the only thing that Robb needed to hear in that moment, “We had a scare, but they’re alright.”

 

Even the use of _we_ calmed him, the very fact that no matter what he and Ella would face, they would have him to face it with. He held on tighter and let the tears - of joy now - fall.

 

“Thank you,” he said finally, when they had stopped. He rubbed his eyes, not knowing when Ella would wake up. He didn’t want to give her any cause to worry. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t gotten to her.”

 

“We’ll never have to,” his father said, “Don’t think like that, does no good to think like that. She’s a strong one,” he said, looking over at Ella. Robb raised his eyebrows and his father shook his head. “A mother’s strength. You’ll see,” he said knowingly, “There’s nothing like it on earth.”

 

 _I’ll see, because they’re both okay,_ he thought gratefully.

 

They were both staring at her so they saw the moment her eyelids started fluttering. She woke and he was to her in a moment, all of his thoughts about not startling her were gone the moment she opened her eyes.

 

“Handsome,” she said, her voice still dreamy. But then she went to hold his hand and she saw the tubes. Her lower lip started to tremble heartbreakingly and the little divet appeared between her eyes. “He’s okay…he’s okay… our boy’s okay…”

 

He wasn’t sure if she was reassuring him or herself, but either way that was his job now, she had done her part.

 

“Of course he is, sweetheart,” he said, holding her to him as gently as he could. She felt frail somehow, and he was afraid of how uncomfortable she must be with all the wires. “You protected our boy, you kept him safe, thank you my beautiful girl.”

 

His father had stepped out as soon as she’d woken, giving them a moment to themselves, but he walked back in with a doctor in tow. Normally Robb would rise to greet him, to thank him, but Ella held onto him and he would not let her out of his arms if she did not wish it.

 

“Doctor,” he said in greeting, “They’re both alright?”

 

Though his father and Ella had both told him, he needed to hear it again, from someone who did not care for him, who would not hide anything to soften the below.

 

“They were very lucky. Your wife did the right thing coming in. A lot of people think pre-pains like that are normal, and they can be, but I fear in this case… anyway… both mother and son are healthy however…”

 

“However?,” Robb said and now Ella was stroking _his_ arm.

 

“I think to be safe, we’re going to want to keep Ella on bedrest for the remainder of the pregnancy,” he said.

 

“But that’s nearly three months! What am I going into confinement?,” Ella asked and Robb had to hold back a smirk. As sweet as she was, Ella did _not_ like being told what to do.

 

His father raised his eyebrows with a _What did I tell ya?_ expression and the doctor shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Is that, completely necessary? What are the perimeters?,” Robb asked, ignoring the glare Ella was shooting his way.

 

“She should stay in the apartment as much as possible. She should feel free to move between the couch and the bed and the bathroom, but…no cleaning, no laundry, no cooking, no errands. If she needs fresh air, please stay within fifty feet of the building…,” he said, his face scrunching up at the end as though bracing for impact.

 

Ella was speechless. Until last week she was still working out five times a week and at an event at least four nights a week. She was still working and campaigning and entertaining friends.

 

Robb took hold of her hand and nodded at the doctor. “Okay, anything else?”

 

“Well there is the matter of care, she doesn’t need someone with her at all times but…she shouldn’t be on her own for stretches of days. I think it’s time you cut back on your travel, Senator.”

 

Robb only saw it out of the corner of his eye, so he could have been wrong, but he could have sworn it was the first smile he’d seen from Ella since she woke up.

 

***

 

The days were long when they were spent in bed. The first two after she arrived home from the hospital were fun at least. Robb stayed with her, and they and Grey Wind piled in and watched episode after episode of Maze of Lords, eating junk food and drifting off, only to wake up once again in each others arms.

 

Then Monday came and he had to leave. He didn’t leave for long, only a meeting or two, but even still, she and Grey Wind surfed the channels lazily before ending up on a stupid new movie that had one of her favorite actors from Maze of Lords in it.

 

On Tuesday, she’d woken to find Grey Wind standing over her as Jon entered the bedroom with his hands up in surrender. He was holding a box of lavender donuts, her favorite, and a bunch of books he’d read that he wanted to talk to her about. Robb had some opinions when he’d come home to find Jon asleep in his spot, but had merely climbed in on her other side and apologised for being gone so long.

 

The days went on and on like that. She constantly had new visitors, even Rickon and Bran came by and sat with her while they did their homework. Robb was there as much as he could be, but he was still campaigning, not to mention governing and every day that got closer to the birth, got closer too to the election.

 

She was never without nourishment. Catelyn came over every Sunday with a big meal and lots of little ones. Her mother too, even, contributed in her own way - increasing her and Robb’s housekeeper to three days a week.

 

The truth of the matter was she had very little to complain about. She was surrounded by loving and attentive friends and family, she had a devoted husband who saw to her every comfort, and most importantly, her son was growing strong inside her.

 

It was only that she was not used to feeling so useless.

 

“Useless?,” Robb asked her, turning around from the closet where he was hanging his shirt. He had come home from a meeting with the shipyard union and brought a card for her from little Lily. He eased on his pajama bottoms and plopped onto the bed next to her. “Our son is growing inside you, sweetheart. Let us do the rest.”

 

“I’m blobby,” she pouted.

 

“You’re beautiful,” he argued, kissing her cheek.

 

“You’re full of it,” she said shaking her head.

 

“Kiss me now and tell me I’m lying,” he said to her quietly.

 

He had said something similar on a night when everything was so new, when she was fighting falling in love with him out of fear, even though his every action had been screaming his devotion. She had felt gross then too, and he had challenged her, begged her to let him show her how irresistible he still found her.

 

She looked into his eyes and leaned in tentatively, kissing him softly on the lips. He returned it passionately, taking her breath away. She wanted him, _so_ badly, she often felt mad with how much she wanted him. She moaned against him, aching to feel him between her legs. But they were parents now, even though their child had yet to be born, so their every thought was for their son.

 

“We can’t…the baby…,” she said, catching her breath.

 

“I know,” he said, blinking rapidly as though trying to get sense to return. “But if you ever call yourself blobby again I will fuck you into oblivion.”

 

“You’re terrible at making threats.”


	15. Handsome; Sweetheart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have LOVED this story and I think part of the reason it took me so long to update is that I knew it was coming to an end. Thank you all for your support on this one. 
> 
> I hope this feels like a worthy end for them.

Robb's leg shook uncontrollably in the backseat of the taxi. They'd seemed to have hit every red light on the way from the airport and the winter roses in his lap were in danger of losing their petals from the jostling. 

 

Ever since Ella moved in, he had always been in a rush to get home. She'd made it a home and he loved to find her sitting on the couch with Grey Wind, her work laptop in her lap saying _Hey handsome, Grey Wind and I are in the mood for ice cream, want to come?_ or changing to head out with their friends, or waiting on him to cook dinner. 

 

He'd grown even more impatient once they'd started their foray into _friends with benefits,_ especially after the first time she greeted him in lingerie. Of course once they got together, formally, it got even worse.

 

That was all before.

 

The driver pulled up in front of their apartment building and he thanked him and paid him, grabbing his small suitcase and running out. He waved to the night doorman who chuckled at him even as he said respectfully _Evening, Senator_. 

 

Grey Wind greeted him at the front door, as did the sounds of wailing.

 

He walked into his former bedroom that they'd turned into the nursery to find Ella in an old t shirt of his hanging limply on her small frame and a pair of pajama pants, her hair up in some messy bun ponytail situation.

 

“Welcome home,” she tried for a smile, but her face fell and she shook her head, ”He won't stop crying.” 

 

He crossed the room to her and little Ned and pressed his hand to his son's forehead. 

 

"He isn't feverish," she assured him, "Or hungry or tired, he doesn't need his diaper changed and he does _not_ want his pacifier."

 

She said all this as though he would assume she hadn't tried everything in her power to make their son happy. As though she hadn't proven to be the most unbelievable mother in the three months since Ned had been born. 

 

"Okay, sweetheart," he said, rubbing her back. He could feel the knots in it and he wondered how long she'd been standing hunched over trying everything she could think of. "Here, your arms must be ready to fall off, let me take him."

 

She transferred Ned to his arms, tucking the blanket up to his chin. He had never thought there could be a person in the world more beautiful to him than Ella, but his son was the best parts of both of them already and he loved his countenance more than any other - even when he was red faced and squalling as he was now.

 

" _Shhhshhhshhh,"_ he urged him, rocking him gently, "What's the matter, son? What do you have to tell us?"

 

Within moments his face returned to its normal color and his cries quieted. Out of habit Robb offered him the pacifier and he took it happily, suckling on it as he looked up at him with his little green eyes.

 

“He hates me,” Ella said. He turned to look at her and it was now her face that was red and it was tears in her green eyes. She buried her face in her hands and her body shook with a sob, “My own baby hates me.”

 

He had learned early on in her pregnancy not to laugh when she was having insane thoughts such as this. It did not help.

 

“Sweetheart of course he doesn’t hate you, you’re his entire world,” he said honestly.

 

She was so good with him, had been from the start. The birth of their son had made him love her on a plane he didn’t know existed. The strength she had when she delivered him and the soft coo of her voice when she held him in the hospital. The sight of her nursing him on their couch, Grey Wind laying on her legs and placing his head under her arm to support it.

 

“I’ve been trying for hours,” she whimpered. “You’re so much better at this than I am.”

 

She gave him far too much credit. She should be raging at him for leaving her all alone with a three month old for a week, but she had always looked at him with rose coloured glasses.

 

“You are the most wonderful mother in the world,” he assured her, “And your son loves you very much. As do I.”

 

She smiled at that and turned and looked lovingly down at Ned. She stroked his cheek and the baby gurgled delightedly, bring a smile to both their faces.

 

She cooed down at him, _“You just missed Daddy, is that it, my love?”_

 

“I missed you both, more than you know,” he said, kissing her temple.

 

It tasted like baby formula.

 

“El, sweetheart,” he said, “I’ve got him, why don’t you go take a shower or a nice long bath?”

 

“No, that’s alright,” she waved him off, “I haven’t even started dinner.”

 

“Have you showered…,” he meant to say _today_ but it came out like, “This week?”

 

She jumped away from him and gave him a horrified look, “Oh my god, do I smell? Oh what a glorious welcome I’ve given you - crying and smelly and -“

 

Her lower limp was trembling and now that he could really look at her he saw the deep purple circles under her eyes. She was dead on her feet.

 

“I feel very welcome,” he assured her. “Go.”

 

She hurried off and he perked his ears to make sure he didn’t hear her putting things away in the kitchen or running a load of laundry. She’d always been a perfectionist, but after becoming a mother she’d grown new limbs, trying to stay on top of everything while caring for their son and stilling finding ways of making him feel wanted and loved.

 

It was too much for anyone, even her.

 

He walked into the living room and settled onto the couch and Grey Wind hopped up next to him, laying his head on his lap.

 

“Have you been walked and fed?,” he asked. The dog looked up at him and Robb sighed, “Of course you have.”

 

He pet Grey Wind’s head slowly, rocking Ned in the other arm until his son’s eyelids drooped and he fell asleep, his little lips parted.

 

“No more giving your Mummy a hard time,” he chastised softly, though it came out as a coo, “She loves you more than anything, just like I do, and we need to help her take care of herself because she takes such good care of us, doesn’t she?” Grey Wind sighed loudly in agreement, “All of us.”

 

He knew he could put Ned down in his crib, knew that he should, but he didn’t want to risk him waking up now that he’d quieted, and the truth was, he’d missed him more than he knew it was possible to miss a person.

 

 

He’d been working from Winterfell more often since he’d been born, working out of his local office. He’d decided not to run for the Senate again, so as Ella had once said, he was trying to do as much good as he could, for as long as he could. There was talks of him maybe being put forward as the next Governor but that race was a year from starting. Either way he had no patience for the Capital.

 

The Senate was in a war of attrition, too evenly split between the two parties for either be able to push much of their agenda, both merely on the defensive. Here though, in Winterfell, in the North, he could make a real difference, helping local authorities and the local governments to have more agency to care for the people in their communities.

 

He’d gone South for a vote, one his side had thankfully won. Ella had practically kicked him out the door, feeling so passionately, as he did, about stopping the bill. It proposed banning refugees from Yunkai from entering the country. There was a terror group, the Sons of the Harpy, and his political opponents from the other party had been fearmongering, saying that these people, the children and mothers and fathers fleeing the Sons of the Harpy, fleeing the bloody civil war and the resulting famine, were really part of the terror group. It was disgusting and racist and he’d been horrified by how close the vote had been.

 

It had been a worthy reason to be away from them, and as he looked down at little Ned he thought about all those parents who sent their babies off with their older children, some no older than six, hoping that Westoros would take pity on them.

 

“It’s a crazy world you’ve been born into, son,” he said softly, “I’m sorry for that.”

 

He felt Ella’s hands on his shoulders and breathed in the familiar scent of her jasmine shampoo when she leaned down to kiss his cheek, tucking Ned’s blanket more securely around him.

 

_But a beautiful world, too._

 

"I'll start on some dinner, what do you feel like having?," she asked. 

 

"We'll order something, sit with me… please," he said. 

 

If he knew her, which he did, he knew she wouldn't have sat for more than ten minutes since he left. 

 

She came around the couch and sat down. She tucked her legs up underneath her, and wrapped her arm around his shoulders. 

 

"Hi handsome," she said.

 

"Hi sweetheart," he returned.

 

She leaned in and pressed her lips to his. Neither opened their mouths to deepen it but the heat was there as always between him and his heart thudded in his chest as it always did when they were close. 

 

“I’m sorry I left you two," he said when they parted, the hand not holding Ned cupped her face, his thumb trailing the purplish circle under one eye.

 

“You had to,” she reasoned, “I saw your speech while Ned was napping earlier… you turned the tide, Robb. Tarly and Bracken _never_ would have come to our side without your appeal. You saved thousands of families, all those children.”

 

“I’m glad it went our way,” he said, “But tell me about you. Tell me everything I’ve missed. Is Ned talking yet?”

 

“Driving, actually,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder, “He’s a great parallel parker, thank goodness he learned that from me.”

 

“From you! Let’s just hope he doesn’t get your lead foot,” he argued, “Not _everyone_ can charm their way out a speeding ticket like you.”

 

She let out her familiar giggle, just for him.

 

By eight o’clock, Ned, Ella and Grey Wind were all asleep on him. He smiled at the comforting soft weight of them all, grateful for the way they all somehow needed him almost as much as he needed them.

 

He put his feet up on the coffee table, careful not to wake any of them as he settled his head back against the couch.

 

It was Sunday, their day. He wasn’t going anywhere.

**Author's Note:**

> Pleeeease don't hate on me for starting another fic! I promise I haven't abandoned my others, I just needed a bit of fresh blood.


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